Debt Update

For the first time in a decade, the ratio of debt to GDP fell back in 2018 for both advanced and emerging market economies. It nevertheless remains high, much higher than at the start of the 2007-08 crisis, and has also continued to rise in some major economies.

The first chart shows the global picture, broken down into the two main country groups counted by the Bank for International Settlements. The ‘advanced’ countries are basically 22 rich ones; the ‘emerging market’ economies are 21 others.* Note also that the data cover the outstanding credit advanced to the non-financial sector, including non-financial corporations, the government and households.

Data for the ratio of debt-to-GDP are given in the next table. It shows that Japan remains a basket case, and its debt ratio has continued to rise. France looks to be in one of the worst positions among the major capitalist countries, with its debt ratio also rising and going above 300% of GDP. While the debt held by the French government has held steady, it has grown among households and corporations. This will keep President Macron and the Gilets Jaunes busy. Elsewhere among the euro countries, the debt ratio has been falling, notably in Germany. 

Total credit to the non-financial sector, 2013-18 (% GDP)

	2013	2015	2017	2018
Advanced economies	268.4	266.5	277.3	265.5
Emerging market economies *	153.3	171.2	191.8	183.2
US	247.4	247.2	250.5	249.8
Japan	363.4	362.0	370.9	375.3
UK	267.7	267.1	283.1	279.3
China	212.7	239.3	253.4	254.0
South Korea	220.3	232.0	231.2	238.2
Germany	192.3	185.2	178.3	175.7
France	281.9	300.8	310.0	311.0
Italy	253.5	270.6	259.7	252.6
Euro area average	264.0	271.3	262.8	258.2

Brexit Britain saw the debt ratio fall a little in 2018, but the odds must be for a further rise of indebtedness this year and next. If likely PM-to-be BoJo can waste so much money as London mayor – from water cannons to garden bridges, buses and a cable car – just think what an empowered narcissist’s plans could be!

China’s debt ratio has risen among the fastest in the past decade or so. Yet the total, at close to 250%, has stabilised in the past year or so and is now similar to that in the US. Ironically, the breakdown shows that ‘communist’ China’s government debt ratio at just below 50% is only half that in the ‘free market’ US, where it registers close to 100% of GDP.

China’s household debt is also lower than in the US, but its non-financial corporate debt is much higher. Nevertheless, around 100% is a common government debt ratio for major countries. Even Germany’s is only just below 70%. So these data would suggest that China has plenty of room, if it chose, to boost its government debt and bail out any corporates in trouble (quite apart from the ability to use its $3.1 trillion of FX reserves).

Tony Norfield, 18 July 2019

Note: * The BIS emerging market economies are: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, the Czech Republic, Hong Kong SAR, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Thailand and Turkey.

Trends in World Debt

The reality of a global economy is shown by close connections in trade and investment, and is reflected in similar trends that affect many key countries. One of these trends is the rise in debt held by governments, households and corporations, as borrowing grew to provide the funds to maintain economic activity. After the acute phase of the economic setbacks in 2007-08, the world is now in the chronic phase of stagnant growth. Occasional blips higher look good, and the patient goes for a walk, but the economy is never far from stumbling back into a ditch.

There are individual deviations from the average picture, but each country's details express the evolution of a world economy. Even though one country may be impacted less, or more, that deviation usually reflects its position in the hierarchy of world economic power. Higher debt levels, or ratios of debt to GDP, are common among the richer countries, especially those that have a privileged position in world finance. After all, they can raise funds from the world market fairly easily since they are the guys in charge and, in the market's 'wisdom', are likely to remain so. Poorer countries have what is called a 'less developed' financial system and tend to hold less debt, at least in relation to the size of their economies. This general point is borne out by the data on debt/GDP for those the Bank for International Settlements considers the 'advanced' versus the 'emerging' countries, as shown in the next chart for the period 2000-2015:

Two features of the previous chart stand out: first, the much higher debt ratios for rich countries, but, second, the faster rate of growth of debt in the poorer countries in recent years. This reflects how much more the poorer countries attempted, from a lower base, to keep their economies ticking over in the wake of the acute phase of the crisis by accumulating more debt.

Country details bring out some other points. First, here is the chart of the total financial sector debt for some key emerging market countries, to add to that already given in a blog post a few days ago for the major advanced countries:

Clearly, China and South Korea have had the biggest growth of debt in the past 15 years, and have the highest ratios of the main 'emerging market' countries. China's rise in debt has been most dramatic after 2008, but, as a later chart will show, this has principally been on the back of the extra debt burden taken on by non-financial corporations (both private and state-owned).

This China development is similar to the results for many EM countries. It contrasts with the picture for advanced countries, where the extra debt has been mainly held by the government sector. This reflects the ability of the major states to borrow and alleviate the burden of the crisis in the corporate and household sectors via government liabilities (debt), while the emerging market countries and their governments, with less access to world markets, are far less able to do so. The breakdown of EM debt in BIS data only goes back a few years, compared to the longer time series for advanced countries, but the next two (different) charts below indicate what has happened:

While advanced countries have seen the debt burden (debt/GDP ratios) of the household and corporate sectors decline in recent years, emerging market country debt ratios have increased sharply, especially for the corporate sector. Government debt ratios have not changed much for emerging market countries.

Now to some country pictures for the breakdown of debt, starting with the major powers. Every picture tells a story, so my comments will be brief. Take care to note the y-axis scale in each chart. A taller bar in one chart compared to another chart does not necessarily mean that the debt ratio is higher.

The US: total debt has stabilised around 250% of GDP. Government debt has doubled to 100% of GDP, but household and corporate debt ratios have declined. As mentioned in an earlier blog post, these data ignore the US Federal Reserve's 'assets' in the form of mortgage securities that they have bought. Also, the data only cover 'non-financial' sector debt, so exclude many other liabilities of the financial sector, not least pension funds.

The UK: similarly, the UK has seen household and corporate debt shrink somewhat, while government debt ratios have also doubled to around 100%. Total non-financial sector debt in 2015 was a touch lower than in 2012, at 266% compared to 277% of GDP, but again, this ignores the many extra liabilities of the Bank of England apart from other obligations.

France: this country is in a worse debt position than the UK. The increase in government debt has been similar, but household debt, and especially corporate debt has risen further in recent years, rather than declining. The total debt ratio in 2014-15 was 290%. In the past five years, annual economic growth in France has been below 1% and often close to zero. This picture gives the backdrop for worries about French banks.

Italy: traditionally having a relatively high government debt ratio compared to other major countries, that debt grew still further after 2007. Total debt stabilised at close to 275% of GDP in 2014-15. Economic growth has been lower even than in France.

Spain: there has been a sharp rise in total debt since 2000, but some recent reduction. Corporate and household debt ratios have fallen in recent years, largely offset by a rise in government debt. In 2015, total debt was 283% of GDP.

Germany: this is the outlier country, with a steady reduction of the total debt ratio in recent years, hitting 184% of GDP in 2015, and with the ratio staying below 200% even in the acute phase of the crisis. German annual economic growth has been weak, at less than 1% in recent years, but Germany's government debt ratios increased by much less than in most other major countries. This may be related to the liability that Germany takes on for the eurosystem via the Bundesbank, and this is not counted in the data here.

Emerging Market Countries

Interesting emerging market countries from a debt perspective are China, South Korea and Brazil. The total debt picture for these was given in the second chart above.

China: historical details for China's debt data are patchy, so for 2000-2006 the following chart only gives the total and the government number (with the black bar indicating the difference). After being fairly stable from 2000 to 2008, China's total debt rose sharply, principally through the rapid debt accumulation of non-financial corporations, both state and private. Household debt has also risen, but not by much. In 2015, the total debt ratio was 255% of GDP, with corporate debt at 171%, up from 99% in 2008. This rapid debt accumulation has led to worries about bad loans, but against this one has to take into account some important mitigating factors. While corporate debt has risen rapidly, the average leverage of corporations is low. Furthermore, the government has an ability to allocate funds between different sectors in the case of emergency, apart from still holding more than $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves.

South Korea: there has been a steady rise in debt ratios for all three non-financial sectors from 2000 to 2015. In 2015, total debt was 235% of GDP, which nevertheless remains well below the figure for most of the major countries shown above.

Brazil: the debt picture for Brazil would seem to belie the crisis the country faces. Total debt rose from close to 100% of GDP in the early 2000s to 149% in 2015, but not by much in the scheme of things, and to a level that remained below all the other countries shown, even below Germany's debt ratio. As in China, Brazil's debt ratio only started rising after 2008. This indicates that the debt ratio is far from giving a full summary of economic conditions. Brazil's economy has been in decline for several years, hit by weaker commodity prices and a slowing of world trade. Government debt started at a relatively high level, but has hardly changed. The increases in household and non-financial corporate debt has accounted for the rise in the total.

Debt and Interest Rates

If you were wondering why interest rates remain at very low levels, with central bank rates negative in Japan and in many European countries, the debt burden is the clearest answer. Huge debts have been accumulated in most key countries in response to the crisis. Now they stand as a mountain of liabilities, payments on which can only be serviced - and defaults avoided - if interest rates remain low. Higher levels of interest rates would threaten to collapse the edifice that has been erected to shore up the world economy.


Tony Norfield, 8 September 2016

The Dead Sea

The Mediterranean is becoming the new Dead Sea. Dead, not because of a lack of fish, but because of an abundance of human corpses. Hundreds of refugees from the Middle East and Africa try to cross into western Europe every day on unseaworthy traffickers' boats and many of them drown: 1500 so far this year.

One irony of not being able to swim is that, if you drown, your body decomposes and gases inflate your stomach. This then makes you lighter than water. So, after failing to stay afloat alive after many hours in the cold sea, you end up being able to float, dead, and coloured a little more grey and blue than a European beach tourism brochure would want to have on its front page.

Italy and Malta have raised the alarm about refugees crossing the Mediterranean, and this week European ministers will decide what to do about it. But they have a problem, since European politics is at the centre of the trouble. The UK and France promoted the intervention in Libya to unseat Gaddafi; France has screwed up its colonies in Tunisia, Mali and Chad; Sudan, Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia have been on the receiving end of many powers' interests; Syria has been undermined by the western powers, while Israel, a key force of instability in the Middle East, is persistently backed by the Europeans as well as by the US, something adding to the Palestinian contingent among the refugees.

The political trouble for Europe is exacerbated by a chronic economic crisis that means it is even harder to maintain the veneer of supporting 'human rights' and all the other verbiage. So, their policy will probably target the symptoms, ie the traffickers. The cause, their role in the oppression of the Middle East and Africa, will obviously not be considered.

Tony Norfield, 22 April 2015

Euro Labour Costs

The previous chart is calculated from some recently published Eurostat data on labour costs in the business sector. For several euro member countries, I have compared changes in their average hourly labour costs (wages, salaries, benefits, etc) to the average for the euro area as a whole. Eurostat does not seem to publish absolute levels of these costs, and only gives an index number (2008 = 100 for all countries). It might be that one country's costs have risen faster than the average, but still remain below average, or vice versa. Also, these numbers take no account of productivity developments and just show changes in an employer's hourly cost of hiring a worker. Despite these qualifications, the picture is still striking.

The chart is indexed to 100 at the start of 2001, thus showing the relative change in each country's labour costs compared to the average since then. This is not to argue that 2001 is some kind of equilibrium year when everything was fine, it just makes the longer-term development easier to see than Eurostat's index numbers with 2008 as 100.

Greece also joined the euro in 2001, and it stands out in the chart. From 2001 to 2005, Greek labour costs rose by around 15% more than the average, then, after falling back, rose again into early 2010. Thereafter, relative costs slumped along with the Greek economy. In absolute terms, the level of Greek labour costs jumped from an index number (2008 = 100) of 76.7 in early 2001 to a peak of 113.4 in early 2010. By the end of 2014, the index number had crashed to 84.3. Nominal wage costs in Greece are back to where they were in 2002, and lower still when adjusted for inflation. On the face of it, this should be encouraging for capitalist employers, but there is still barely any sign of economic recovery. Profitable production depends upon more than cheap labour.

Spain stands out too, as the euro member country with the most sustained rise in relative labour costs. From 2001 to 2010 these rose by some 15% more than the euro average. Mass unemployment in Spain has made the gap narrower since then, but, by the end of 2014, Spain's relative costs were still 10% higher than in 2001. In absolute terms, Spain's labour costs have flatlined in the past few years, rather than having fallen drastically, as in Greece. Spain's index number (2008 = 100) rose from 72.3 in 2001 to 110 in 2012, where it has since stayed.

France and Italy's labour costs have risen only a little faster than the average, by less than 5% in the period to end-2014. Germany's labour costs, however, rose less quickly than the average for a decade, and only began to rise a little faster from 2010.

Tony Norfield, 20 April 2015

Europe Gets Even More QuEasy

Today the European Central Bank did what financial markets had expected, after lots of leaking of the policy moves. They announced they would buy securities in the asset markets, at a rate a little higher than had been expected of €60 billion per month, from March 2015. The policy will continue until inflation looks like getting closer to 2%, which, with the slump in energy prices, will be a while yet. In all likelihood, this extra asset buying (there has been some before) will amount to a bit over €1 trillion and last until September 2016, maybe longer. For comparison's sake, the new policy is around 10% of euro area GDP, compared to the US and UK policies of 'quantitative easing' that have amounted to more than 20% of GDP.

This policy move is the latest in a series that indicate there is no way out of the crisis. How can anyone believe that this policy, essentially making government bonds have even lower yields, can do anything for the economy when 10-year government borrowing costs were already less than 1% in Germany and France and less than 2% in Italy and Spain, the euro area's biggest economies?

The central bank's notion is that this will feed into private sector borrowing costs being lower, but there are some difficulties here. One is that there is very little demand to borrow to invest, given the dire economic outlook; the other is that banks would not to lend at anything like the sub-1% or 2% numbers to private investors, and the level of interest rates is not the problem. The problem is that there is no profitable avenue for large-scale capital investment, or any investment that does not depend upon government subsidy, tax dodging or some form of financial trickery. Even the countries that claim they have done better than the euro average - especially the US, but also the UK and Switzerland - are now faced with higher currency values against the ones that are under the market's cosh. Last week, the Swiss National Bank's made a dramatic move to abandon its 3-year attempt to stabilise its currency against the euro. This was done largely in anticipation of this week's action by the ECB and so far the euro's value has fallen 18% against the Swiss franc. Unsurprisingly, the euro fell another 1-2% today.

The ECB made a concession to German worries about the new policy. They said that 80% of the risk of the new purchases would be borne by national central banks, because central banks in the euro area might buy rubbish and face a loss. In its press releases today, they did not explain who would buy what, or how much. Because the scale of the buying, if it is not directed, would evidently be concentrated on the better risks - Germany, especially - a proviso was included: only up to one-third of a country's outstanding debt could be bought in this way, and the debt had to have a maturity of 2-30 years. Germany has around €1.1 trillion of debt outstanding, with less than this in the 2-30 maturity range. So these, the 'safest assets', will not be able to use up more than about a third of the new programme. German government securities out to a maturity of 5 years also have a yield that is zero or negative. So, presumably, this is good news for the government securities of France, Italy and Spain, the other countries with large bond markets.

The ECB's hope is that the lower yields will force investors to take on more economy-boosting risks. Instead, the likelihood is that there will be a continued reliance by capitalists on 'making money' through financial investment, something that further stretches the gap between value creation and financial accounting. On occasion, that gap is narrowed by a slump of financial market prices for bonds and/or equities, but the ECB has signalled that it will gamble for a while longer on trying to push the gap still wider.

Tony Norfield, 22 January 2015

The Wages of Sinn and the Euro Crisis

Today I went to the launch meeting in the City of London for the latest book from Hans-Werner Sinn, entitled Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets and Beliefs. Sinn is probably best known as the President of Germany's Ifo Institute, as a well-informed, critical commentator on the European Central Bank and as someone who delivers withering critiques of economic and financial policies in the euro area. I have read some of his papers on the ECB's TARGET payments system - ones that explain the economic disaster of the euro project more clearly than one might expect - and have seen a video of an earlier speech on the euro crisis. So, I was intrigued to attend this meeting. The comments here are from my notes of his presentation. They will lack some detail, although they should nevertheless give the gist of what was said. I have ordered his new book, and will correct any misrepresentations once I have read it.

Professor Sinn's skill is in expressing his views very clearly, and with an abundance of supporting empirical evidence. Those who disagree with him may claim that he has got it wrong, but often they will be addressing a different question and not confronting the essence of what he is saying. This is certainly the impression I have had reading 'expert' spokesmen for the euro elite who criticise Sinn. Radicals, who consider him part of the reactionary establishment arguing for austerity, do not usually attempt to address his views at all.

Sinn's view of the (euro economic) world is straightforward. He admitted that he was initially a supporter of the euro project, with some reservations, and that he did not anticipate how badly it would turn out. He then focused on the facts that cannot be denied: most, if not all, of the crisis-hit euro countries went through a decade or more of falling competitiveness before the global turmoil (for the richer countries) began in 2007-08.

This falling competitiveness was based upon a growth of real incomes, consumer demand and public spending that outran the productive capacity of the individual countries. It was fed by falling interest rates that encouraged borrowing and, for the weaker countries, by a euro system that appeared to make lending to borrowers (Greece, Spain, etc) with much weaker economies have more or less the same risk as lending to those in the richer, stronger euro countries. The 'irrevocable exchange rate' of the euro, and the denial that any individual state would ever exit the system, covered up the gap in the euro project's construction: there was no agreed mechanism for rescuing insolvent states, in particular there was no unified fiscal policy, something that would have to have depended upon a political union of member countries, not simply a monetary union.

So, the euro system had no mechanism for dealing with the economic effects of divergent competitiveness reflected in the mounting levels of external debt (via current account deficits) for weaker countries. What happened instead was that the TARGET payments system for interbank transfers within the system simply led to ever-increasing liabilities of the uncompetitive and ever-increasing assets of the competitive, with the ultimate risk being put on the relevant national central banks. In practice, Germany's central bank has taken on the asset risk that German companies have in Spain, Greece, etc. The German companies get paid, but via a credit issued by the German central bank to its central bank counterparts in Spain, Greece, etc. This means that the German central bank, the Bundesbank, has questionable assets in its lending to the central banks of Spain, Greece, etc, while the Spanish and Greek central banks have liabilities to the Bundesbank offset by questionable assets from securities (and promises) delivered to them by their own domestic banks and companies.

That is bad enough, but things got worse. In recent years, the credit quality of collateral accepted by central banks from private banks in the euro system was reduced, the ECB embarked upon a series of measures to buy government and private sector securities and, in the latest measures, the ECB will also buy junk assets to 'rescue' private banks from their ownership of rubbish. Six crisis countries, claimed Sinn, have received more than €1,300bn of credit in this way, of which more than 80% has come from the ECB.

These points should make one ponder a while.

For all the protests about austerity, the euro system has invented new funds for crisis-struck countries in a way that has clearly transgressed the supposed neoliberal policy regime. Sinn noted that the US Fed, for example, would never have bought Californian state bonds. Instead, he complains, the risks of the economic disaster have been transferred to euro states and, hence, to the (German?) taxpayer.

Radicals will complain that the banks have been bailed out and rescued, while austerity continues. However, the real point is that Europe is an economic disaster area and there has been, so far, great reluctance by governments to force a market reckoning upon the mass of the population. Sinn is more conciliatory on this issue than one might think. He fears that mass unemployment, especially youth unemployment above 25% in several countries, will lead to political turmoil and extremism. He worries that 'productivity' is only rising in some countries because jobs are being shed, not because there is any productive investment. If one were to argue that yes, there has already been enough austerity, he will present statistics to show that there is another 10% to go in Italy, 20% in France and 30-35% in Spain and Greece before competitiveness is restored.

I do not necessarily agree with Sinn's numbers, but his case is clear and a few percentage points here or there make little difference to his main argument: the economics of (euro) capitalism demands austerity. All this, of course, raises bigger questions.

Sinn, despite appearances to the contrary, hopes that the euro system will survive, but he argues that it can only do so if it recognises its fundamental flaws. He proposes a 'temporary' exit of crisis-hit countries, who will then devalue their currencies and later re-enter the euro system, as of right. His solution is quaintly optimistic, but one should recognise that he favours European integration and political stability. The only problem here is that he insists that this must be on sustainable terms if it is to work. Critics of his position often focus upon Germany's benefits from the system, but he correctly notes that Germany itself had a long phase of labour market austerity in the 2000s, which is why the country has become very competitive. Above all, he wants a viable capitalist system, although with European capitalist stability high on his list of priorities.

Questions confronting those who are less concerned with saving the capitalist system, in the euro area, or elsewhere, are as follows. Firstly, it does not make sense to argue against austerity by making this an anti-German argument, as if German workers did not also have their own phase of austerity before. Secondly, an attack on 'austerity' must recognise the privileges of those in the EU/euro area who have benefited from their own countries' domination of international markets, through the control of trade links, patents or owning many of the key monopolistic companies. Fighting austerity at home is hypocritical if it does not recognise the way that the economic system subordinates others.

Thirdly, recognise that Sinn's arguments are the logical consequence of a clear-sighted capitalist perspective, and one that is also ameliorated by a concern for social stability. He has much better arguments about what is needed by capitalism today in Europe than the nonsense of 'alternative policies'. The proponents of the latter know they are dead in the water, but they might still attract some external funding, whether in advocating wind farms or whatever else. Sinn's position is to advance a policy that he recognises is a 'dismal option' - and one that he does not really expect to succeed, still less to make people happy - but he hopes it would be better than the current euro political decision to do nothing and instead to hope something will turn up.

It is unlikely that his policy recommendations will be followed, partly because euro politicians correctly see the barriers to any proposal that highlights what is really going on. Confronting an intractable capitalist crisis is something that the current generation of politicians cannot manage. The crisis has blown their legs off, yet they still dream of strolling down the road as in the good old days. Even if Professor Hans-Werner Sinn were to become the new arbiter of euro policy, that would still leave the system he seeks to sustain in question.

Tony Norfield, 9 October 2014

Imperialism by Numbers - Amendment

This is an update to the chart on the ‘Index of Imperialism’ published on this blog six months ago, on 1 May. The change made here is that I use another set of data to account for the international banks in major countries; otherwise the five factors in the ‘Imperialism index’ remain the same. To recap, these were made up from: nominal GDP, military spending, the stock of foreign direct investment, the size of international banks based in a particular country and the global use of that country’s currency in international foreign exchange reserves.

As noted previously, any set of data has its limitations. However, the earlier data I used for banks were based on a country’s ownership of the top 50 international banks and this only covered 14 countries. The new numbers are based on BIS data for the relative size of international assets and liabilities of banks operating in particular countries. They are not limited by the number of banks and cover 19 of the 20 countries in the chart. The BIS also gives figures for bank assets and liabilities by the nationality of the bank. However, these data are for only nine countries, so I did not use them (in any case, they show a similarly ranked pattern to the bank-location data that is used here).

With these new data for international banking, the rank and index value of some countries changes significantly, but in a way that I think better reflects power relations in the world economy. The US is no longer top in all categories; it falls into second place as a centre for international banking, behind the UK . But this still leaves the US as top power, with the UK a distant second. Germany moves up to position 3, China jumps to position 4, now ahead of Japan, and France falls to position 6 from position 3 that it had before. Italy, Switzerland and Canada fall back in their ranking; Netherlands moves up to position 7.

(The chart has now been changed from when first published, with corrected ISO codes for Canada, CA, and Belgium, BE)

Chart: The Imperial Pecking Order

Notes: The height of each bar is given by the country’s total index value, which is then broken down into the respective components. Countries are identified by their two-letter ISO code. Take care, because CH is Switzerland, not China (which is CN), and SA is Saudi Arabia, not South Africa (not shown, as it was ranked number 26).

I would reiterate that the position of an individual country can only properly be understood by looking at its relationship to the imperialist system as a whole, not simply by examining whether its index value is higher or lower than another’s. It would be foolish to say that a particular index number means a country is imperialist, while one that is a certain amount smaller shows that it is not. The index components summarise only particular dimensions of the system. Different measures would produce different results, and any index measure would have a problem grasping the dynamics of the system. However, the chart I use clearly indicates that a very small number of countries are head and shoulders, and elbows too, ahead of all the others in the world. Most other measures of international power would show similar results.

Tony Norfield, 1 November 2012

Merkel's Money

Don’t take the rally in Europe’s financial markets as a sign that the euro crisis is over. The 4.3% jump in Germany’s Dax index today and the rise in the euro’s exchange rate are more a reaction to hopes for further flows of ‘free money’ and relief at a crisis postponed once more. The surprise was genuine enough, after German chancellor Merkel’s former hard line on the need for austerity and ‘reform’ among indebted euro countries Spain and Italy, and in the context of widespread German political opposition to further bailouts.

A report on Merkel’s rationale for dropping the position Germany had before the latest Euro meeting, and making big concessions to Spain and Italy (hence, also to France, given French banks’ massive exposure to these countries!), highlights the following issues.

Merkel seems to think that high interest rate on Spanish and Italian debt are the problem, not the mess those countries are in which is leading to the high interest rates! Plus she thinks (or at least said in her statement to the Bundestag) that the EU Commission monitoring of their economic policies is still 'tough', so they did not need any additional terms applied to extra loans.

The end result is that there is a further extension of a 'euro country' general bail out for Spain and Italy, via the European Stability Mechanism, one of the newly invented funds. Merkel did not mention Germany's dominant share in paying for these, nor being liable for these, nor was she impolite enough to note the limited prospects for 'reform' in either country.

She won the Bundestag vote. But there will be further political trouble for her in Germany, and also many more disputes over terms and conditions of the new loans between Germany and other countries, when eventually they are due to be paid out.

Partly, this episode reflects the intractable debt situation in Europe and a desire to postpone confronting problems that cannot be solved. Partly, it is one of the wonders of the credit markets that you can always appear to have more money than you really have, if you only pay attention to the interest payments and not to the accumulation of debt. This is especially when it seems possible to drive the interest rate on borrowing down through state-credit backed bond purchases!

That neat solution of using someone else's money and credit rating to extend further debt begins to unravel when their credit rating is called into question. This is probably still some way off for Germany, which recently has had very low bond yields (even negative yields for 1-2 year bonds!). However, the first sign that the game is up will be when Germany loses its triple-A rating.

In the meantime, this episode also highlights the nonsense that it is German imperialism that is strangling Europe's economy. Yes, Germany is an imperialist power, but it is desperately trying to keep together a system – at growing cost to itself – that has guaranteed both its economic privileges and those that accrue to other members of the euro group. As a policy, this is like delaying an amputation until the last minute, just in case something else, less drastic, comes up. While these matters fester, just consider: how many tens, or hundreds, of billions in cheap credits have been extended to those outside the rich club?

Tony Norfield, 29 June 2012

Law of Value versus Berlusconi, Papandreou

The calculations of European politicians have come unstuck. Political favours, patronage, trusted allies and deals that worked to produce results in the past now do not work at all. The evolution of the crisis says: ‘You have no more money’. That is the simple message that has led to the resignations of Berlusconi, imperious clown of Italy, and Papandreou, dynastic head of Greece.

As previous articles on this blog have shown, things are getting worse.[1] The impact on Europe has hit the headlines most in recent weeks, with the media focus on rising bond yields, reflecting the lack of credibility that governments have in resolving the crisis. Even the European Financial Stability Facility (the more words, the less content) faces rising yields, leading to a situation where, as one market analyst put it, “the vehicle that’s supposed to borrow on behalf of countries that can’t borrow, can’t borrow.”[2] Read that two or more times, and you will get the idea. How the EFSF is meant to leverage its remaining funds to €1000bn in this situation I will leave to the geniuses of financial engineering.

The capitalist solution to the crisis involves a wholesale destruction of conventional living standards, and more besides. There are no solutions that any political party in crisis-stricken countries can propose that will get widespread support, but the destruction will get under way in any case. More Italians may hate Berlusconi now, but his exit will do nothing to resolve Italy’s problems. The resolution implies austerity, and no reduction in Italian bond yields based on his demise will prevent that. The same thing applies to Greece, which seems to have stepped back from the brink of what may have been an even bigger shock to its living standards – leaving the euro – than is now going to happen, minus Papandreou.[3]

The main European imperial powers, Germany and France, have their own reckoning to ponder. Busy trying to maintain the system they built, they have found their own finances under threat, as reflected in the weakened position of the EFSF, Sarkozy’s worries about French banks and Merkel’s troubles in the Bundestag. ‘Merkozy’ can deliberate, but the capitalist market decides. That is what the Law of Value is all about.

Tony Norfield, 8 November 2011

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[1] See ‘It Can Always Get Worse’, 22 September 2011.

[2] See Lex Column, Financial Times, 3 November 2011.

[3] In my view, the costs for Greece of leaving the euro are huge. There are no historical examples of leaving a currency system after having given up the domestic currency and having spent a decade writing commercial contracts in a joint currency. The banking system may collapse within the euro system; it would definitely collapse outside of it.

Libya is for Everyone?

These are some factors to bear in mind when assessing the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in Libya:

1. The European powers are now best placed to gain influence in Libya, especially Britain, which had already led the way in rehabilitating Libya back into the imperialist fold under Gaddafi. Britain’s BP had already struck oil and gas exploration deals with the regime in 2007 – its ‘single biggest exploration commitment’.[1] Alongside this, the LSE (latterly dubbed the ‘Libyan School of Economics’ after the Saif Al-Islam fiasco) was busy mentoring the Libyan elite in the wonders of ‘governance’. This was no doubt encouraged by the UK Foreign Office in order to gain influence over a new generation of rulers.

2. Libya is a rentier state, with the main spoils from energy revenues going to Gaddafi and his clan. There was normally enough left to distribute to other clans to keep them quiet; if not, then political repression kept the regime in place. However, political unrest grew after the Arab spring, which appeared to open up the possibility of regime change to Gaddafi’s disparate clan rivals. Gaddafi was fine for Britain and other powers while he was unchallenged and was becoming a stable partner. Post-Tunisia and post-Egypt, he was not.

3. The Libyan Investment Authority had been responsible for investing surplus oil funds and had assets valued at over $50bn in mid-2010. Before the sanctions on Libya earlier this year, it had already been suckered by western banks into loss-making bets on things like Société Générale shares and investments promoted by Goldman Sachs, and others, that lost almost all their value. Apart from the potential oil and gas revenues, control or influence over these funds will also be of great interest to western powers.

4. The NATO attack on Libya was initially promoted by Britain and France. Starting out under the usual false flag of ‘humanitarian intervention’, it quickly became an overt means of promoting regime change by backing one side in a civil war. The Libyan rebels in Benghazi quickly fell into the arms of western powers, with British intervention to open up ‘discussions’ being prominent. Since the end of July, the National Transitional Council has had an ambassador in London, after the expulsion of Gaddafi’s staff. The British have also been releasing previously-frozen Libyan funds held in London to finance the NTC. Today, the Financial Times reports that Britain’s office in Benghazi (!) has deployed a UK-led ‘international stabilisation response team’ to back up the NTC and ‘a separate British team is helping to build command and control capacity and assistance including communications kit and police training’.[2]

5. The US provided most of the firepower for the attack on Libya, but has effectively been sidelined by the British and the French. Italy, busy with the Berlusconi show, has had little role, despite being the previous colonial power and having extensive economic and financial relationships with the country. Over 20% of the Libyan Investment Authority’s $6bn equity investments are in Italian companies, eg Unicredit and ENI.

6. So far, Libyan events look like a big success for British imperialism: regime change to a more pliant group, big deals ahead, and at a cost of less than £300m for the military budget. But the ‘new Libya’ will still be fought over by the other powers, and the US will be unimpressed with spending $1bn to subsidise British strategy.

In the early hours of this morning, speaking on the Libyan opposition's TV network, Mahmoud Jibril, chairman of the NTC said ‘Libya is for everyone and will now be for everyone’. He meant that all Libya’s people would now participate in building the country, but the real message for imperialism is that Libya is now up for grabs.

Tony Norfield, 22 August 2011

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[1] See the BP website: http://www.bp.com/genericarticle.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=7033600

[2] See ‘Cameron welcomes Gaddafi retreat’, Financial Times, 22 August 2011.