Utdrag ur The Economists ledare 1998-04-18
AN ECONOMIST, it is said, is an expert who will know tomorrow why the things he predicted yesterday did not happen today. So what will be tomorrow’s explanation of why share prices continue to soar today despite frequent warnings from many commentators (including The Economist) that Wall Street is overvalued?
The most popular explanation within America is that it has entered
a new economic era of faster, inflation-free growth, and hence
stronger profits, thanks to new technology and globalisation. We beg
to differ: America is experiencing a serious asset-price bubble.
This week’s spring meetings of the IMF
and the World Bank were dominated by talks about the slump in Japan
and how to prevent another financial crisis like that in East Asia.
These subjects certainly still matter. But it is asset-price
inflation, especially in the United States, that now poses a bigger
and more imminent threat to the global economy.
America’s stockmarket has gained another 15% this year,
taking its total rise over the past two years to a massive 65%. This
is not the only symptom of a bubble: America’s commercial
property market is starting to get frothy, and mergers are running at
record levels
This talk about a “bubble” may seem odd
against the consensus view that the American economy can look forward
to many more years of steady, inflation-free growth.
Rising asset
prices are not necessarily bad. In part, America’s higher share
prices are justified by genuine improvements in performance.
Deregulation, increased competition, better corporate governance, and
more prudent fiscal policy have all played a part—but only a
part.
The boom in share prices has also been fuelled by excessive
monetary growth. America’s M3 money supply
has grown by almost 10% over the past year, its fastest since 1985.
It is true that real short-term interest rates have risen in America
as inflation has declined, but if calculated using the rise in asset
prices rather than consumer prices then real interest rates are
negative.
America’s financial bubble could harm its
economy in two ways. It might suddenly burst, causing financial
instability, destroying wealth and bringing about a recession.
Or asset-price inflation may spread, causing over-investment and a consumer-spending binge as shareholders spend some of their capital gains. The inevitable result would be consumer-price inflation.
In the late 1980s, rapid monetary growth first showed up in asset
prices, but it was ignored, and so inflation spread. There are
already some bad omens. Consumer spending is estimated to have risen
at an annual rate of 5% in the first quarter of this year. There are
some signs of a slowdown, but with unemployment at its lowest rate
for almost 30 years there is no slack left in the economy to absorb
such rapid spending growth.
With hindsight it is clear that
the Fed made a mistake in not raising interest rates last year to let
some air out of the bubble. Pricking a financial bubble is a risky
business, and it is better to act early to prevent one developing.
After fretting about “irrational exuberance” in
December 1996, Alan Greenspan then went quiet. If, in bursting the
bubble, the Fed triggers a recession, it will get all the blame. As
America’s 80m shareholders protest about their shrinking
wealth, it might not be long before Congress acts to curb the Fed’s
power.
Another problem is the enormous uncertainty about when and
by how much interest rates need to be raised to cap asset-price
inflation. There is no way to work out how much of a rise in share
prices is justified by better economic fundamentals.
As the Fed itself says: “There is no means of knowing beyond
question how far this recent rise in stock prices represents
excessive speculation and how far a readjustment of values to
increased industrial efficiency [ . . . ] and
larger profits.” Actually, it was not Alan Greenspan who said
that. This is an extract from the Fed’s minutes exactly 70
years ago, in 1928, on the eve of the Wall Street crash. 
The Fed needs to raise interest rates now. Uncertainty is no
excuse for Mr Greenspan to sit on his hands. In the late 1920s the
Fed was also reluctant to raise interest rates in response to surging
share prices, leaving rampant bank lending to push prices higher
still. When the Fed did belatedly act, the bubble burst with a
vengeance. The longer that asset prices continue to be pumped up by
easy money, the more inflated the bubble will become and the more
painful the economic after-effects when it bursts.
Because the
Fed has again left it rather late, it will be hard to prick the
bubble without risking a recession. If one does come, central bankers
have at least now learnt to ease monetary policy, if necessary, to
prevent a dramatic crash in share prices turning into an economic
depression. One way or another, America’s stockmarket is about
to play a more important role in America’s monetary policy than
at any time since the 1920s.
It would be better if this were to happen sooner rather than later.
The Mess Greenspan Leaves
We can see here how the policy of inflating bubble after bubble to avoid the recessionary implications of previous bubbles has resulted in ever greater imbalances, with the savings rate falling ever lower after each bubble and the debt burden growing ever greater.
More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise
Stefan Karlsson, December 26, 2005
In this context, it seems appropriate to quote "Gold and Economic Freedom":
When business in the United States underwent a mild contraction in 1927, the Federal Reserve created more paper reserves in the hope of forestalling any possible bank reserve shortage. More disastrous, however, was the Federal Reserve's attempt to assist Great Britain who had been losing gold to us because the Bank of England refused to allow interest rates to rise when market forces dictated (it was politically unpalatable). The reasoning of the authorities involved was as follows: if the Federal Reserve pumped excessive paper reserves into American banks, interest rates in the United States would fall to a level comparable with those in Great Britain; this would act to stop Britain's gold loss and avoid the political embarrassment of having to raise interest rates. The "Fed" succeeded; it stopped the gold loss, but it nearly destroyed the economies of the world, in the process. The excess credit which the Fed pumped into the economy spilled over into the stock market — triggering a fantastic speculative boom. Belatedly, Federal Reserve officials attempted to sop up the excess reserves and finally succeeded in braking the boom. But it was too late: by 1929 the speculative imbalances had become so overwhelming that the attempt precipitated a sharp retrenching and a consequent demoralizing of business confidence.
Before he became Fed Chairman, some believers in sound money thought Greenspan might push for a less inflationary monetary policy. They pointed to his past as a close associate of Ayn Rand and author of the "Gold And Economic Freedom" chapter in Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal.
He also described the events leading to the Great Depression in much the same way that Murray Rothbard did in America's Great Depression.
Gold and Economic Freedom
by Alan Greenspan [written in 1966]
This article originally appeared in a newsletter: The Objectivist published in 1966
and was reprinted in Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal
Bank of England raised interest rates to 7 per cent in 1920.
The aim of this was to support the return to the prewar /USD-GBP/ parity.
Coupled with the consequent deflation, the result was extraordinarily high real interest rates.
This, then, was how the self-righteous fools in the British establishment greeted the hapless survivors of the hellish war.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times, 9 October 2012
The UK emerged from the first world war with public debt of 140 per cent of gross domestic product and prices more than double the prewar level.
The government resolved both to return to the gold standard at the prewar parity, which it did in 1925, and to pay off the public debt, to preserve creditworthiness.
Here was a country fit for the Tea Party.
What happens if a large, high-income economy, burdened with high levels of debt and an overvalued, fixed exchange rate, attempts to lower the debt and regain competitiveness?
This question is of current relevance, since this is the challenge confronting Italy and Spain.
Yet, as a chapter in the International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook demonstrates,
a relevant historical experience exists: that of the UK between the two world wars.
This proves that the interaction between attempts at “internal devaluations” and the dynamics of debt are potentially lethal.
Moreover, the plight of Italy and Spain is, in many ways, worse than the UK’s was. The latter, after all, could go off the gold standard; exit from the eurozone is far harder.
Again, the UK had a central bank able and willing to reduce interest rates.
The European Central Bank may not be able and willing to do the same for Italy and Spain.
Interndevalvering (Ådals-metoden)
Churchill was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1924 under Stanley Baldwin and oversaw Britain's disastrous return to the Gold Standard, which resulted in deflation, unemployment, and the miners' strike that led to the General Strike of 1926.
This decision prompted the economist John Maynard Keynes to write The Economic Consequences of Mr. Churchill, arguing that the return to the gold standard would lead to a world depression.
Churchill later regarded this as one of the worst decisions of his life; he was not an economist and that he acted on the advice of the Governor of the Bank of England, Montagu Norman.
From "Churchill: A Biography" by Roy Jenkins
Gold and Strikes, page 399 ff
Norman, the Great Govenor was even more sublimely bland. In the opinion "of
ecucated and resonable men", he wrote, there was no alternative (RE: Den Enda Vägen, således)
to a return to gold. The Chancellor would no doubt be attacked whatever he did but
"In the former case (Gold)he will be abused the ignorant, the gamblers and the
antiquated industrialists; in the latter case (not Gold) /RE: ingen uppskrivnig av
pundet/ he will be abused by the instructed and by posterity."
Source according to Jenkins: Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill, V, p.94
Till en annan kritiker, Otto Niemeyer skrev Churchill, enligt Jenkins
The Treasury has never, it seems to me, faced the profound significance of what
Mr Keynes calls "the paradox of unemployment amidst dearth". The Govenor shows
himslef perfectly happy in the spectacle of Britain possesing the finest credit
in the world simualtanously with a million and a quarter unemployed. Obviously
if these million and a quarter were usefully and economically employed, they would
produce at least GBP 100 a year, instead of costing at least GBP 50 a head
in doles.
RE: Det var i alla fall inte för höga ersättningsnivåer i deras A-kassa.
RE: Därefter lade sig Churchill platt och handlade som rekommenderats av "ecucated and resonable men".
Jenkins skriver härom:
The momentum of conventional wisdom swept them (Keynes-McKenna) away...
a remarkable example of a strong not a weak minister nonetheless reluctantly succumbing,
grudgingly adjustning himself to the near unanimous, near irresistible flow of
establishment opinion.
As a result there was committed what is commonly regarded as the greatest mistake of that main Baldwin government, and the resonsibility for it came firmly to rest upon Churchill. Keynes, for instance, wrote a pamphlet to which, playing on the resounding success of his 1919 The Economic Consequences of the Peace he gave the title The Economic Consequences of Mr Churchill.
Churchill: A Biography by Roy Jenkins
Anne Wibble hade det heller inte så lätt
When Germany entered the euro it made the same mistakes as Britain did
when it rejoined the gold standard in 1925 and re-pegged the pound to the dollar after 1945.
Anatole Kaletsky
The
Times, August 29, 2002
Highly recommended
It is economic performance – not the European Union budget or any proposed constitution – that will determine the fate of the “European Project”.
After all, Hitler came to power in 1933 due to “ordinary economic voting behaviour” when the mainstream parties’ economic agendas were unconvincing, not because a majority of German voters then embraced Nazi ideology.
Adam Posen, Financial Times, August 3 2005
The punitive 1919 Treaty of Versailles leading inevitably to Hitler’s capture of power in a resentful Germany in 1933.
But in The Lights That Failed Steiner challenges this traditional view
The 1920s was an aftermath of the first world war and the 1930s was a prologue to the second, the two decades bordered by the “hinge years” of 1929-33, when the Wall Street crash engulfed Europe in depression
Jackie Wullschlager Financial Times April 29 2005
THE LIGHTS THAT FAILED:
European International History 1919-1933
by Zara Steiner, Oxford University Press £35, 938 pages
about the book at Amazon
By the 1920s most European states had stabilised their currencies and were willing to seek co-operative solutions to political conflicts. The League of Nations was a functioning institution that knit together the international community, world disarmament was actively pursued and Briand suggested in 1929 that “among peoples constituting geographical groups, like the peoples of Europe, there should be some kind of federal bond... primarily economic [which] might also do useful work politically and socially, and without affecting [national] sovereignty”.
Steiner does not dwell on German hyper-inflation of the early 1920s ... but emphasises instead continuing negotiations to diminish the Versailles terms, so that by 1929 Germany was receiving more in US loans than she was paying in reparations.
Germany - an emerging superpower?
Comparisons with the 1930s
Sara Moore [The European Journal, May 2008]
Peace Without Victory for the Allies, 1918-1932
by Sara Moore (Author)
How Hitler Came to Power
by Sara Moore
Första världskriget var inte nödvändigt
Inför hundraårsdagen 2014 stundar en strid ström av böcker. Få kommer att kunna mäta sig med The Sleepwalkers av Christopher Clark.
Andreas Danielsen, Axess Magasin nr 9, december 2012
Vi fick lära oss att 1900-talets urkatastrof, första världskriget, var oundvikligt. Stormakternas nationalism och kapprustning störtade dem i avgrunden.
Men få historiker köper idag denna förklaring till krigsutbrottet, även om de fortfarande tvistar om de verkliga orsakerna.
Efter snart 100 år och oräkneliga studier om tragedins förspel vet vi i detalj vad som utspelade sig sommaren 1914, men vi är fortfarande förvånansvärt okunniga om varför det hände.
Enligt min mening kan den enda rimliga förklaringen sammanfattas i ett ord: heder. För makthavarna och deras aristokratiska värderingar var krig att likna vid dueller mellan stater.
Franz Ferdinand, rikets tronföljare och framtidshopp, hade mördats på eget territorium av en fiendemakts hantlangare. Attentatet var en exempellös förolämpning av en barbarisk uppkomling mot den anrika monarkin.
Flera av stormakterna kanske snubblade aningslöst mot ruinens brant, men Österrike-Ungern marscherade med berått mod dithän.
Let’s not be beastly to the Germans
Nigel Jones, The Spectator 27 September 2012
The question of how Europe stumbled into the horrific abyss of the First World War, the catastrophe which The Economist once called ‘the greatest tragedy in human history’ is obviously of much more than purely academic interest. (Though it is chiefly academics who have been arguing about it ever since).
As we approach the centenary of the conflict’s outbreak, one of them, Christopher Clark, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, has written a magnificently detailed study of the diplomatic dance that led the continent up to and over the edge.
The Sleepwalkers should be required reading for politicians and decision-makers fumblingly steering the world in our own age, an epoch perhaps even more dangerous than the era of 1914.
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, av Christopher Clark hos Amazon
Vi kommer aldrig att bli färdiga med första världskriget
Den totala ringaktning för människoliv som präglade dess generaler,
den kataklysmiska effekt konflikten fick på Europas samhällsordning och
de miljoner och åter miljoner av mänskliga tragedier som utspelade sig i skyttegravar och fattiga soldathem
Dick Harrison, understreckare SvD 28 februari 2012
James Barr’s new book, A Line in the Sand
Review by Patrick Seale, FT August 26, 2011
The story of how Britain and France carved up the Arab world between them after the first world war
has often been told but James Barr’s new book, A Line in the Sand, adds some spice to the usual accounts of this
decisive moment in the history of the Middle East.
It was a cynical act of imperial greed.
The Run-Up to World War One
December 13th, 2010 | Author: Pater Tenebrarum
Europas sista sommar. Vem startade första världskriget?
Till den allt större floran av böcker om kriget 1914-1918 kan vi nu lägga ytterligare två till svenska översatta alster, den amerikanske historikern David Fromkins Europas sista sommar. Vem startade första världskriget? och militärhistorikern H P Willmotts Första världskriget.
Dick Harrison SvD 11/11 (vapenstilleståndsdagen) 2004
Kommentar av Rolf Englund:
Det är väl alldeles uppenbart vem som startade Första Världskriget?
Kejsaren av Österrike-Ungern - en Habsburgare - undertecknade ordern om angrepp på Serbien.
När EU och NATO angrep Serbien med stöd av Anna Lindh, vägrade Österrike att upplåta sitt luftrum åt EU/NATO. I Österrike visste man att det kunde gå illa om man angrep Serbien...
Pappenheim (Vi känner våra pappenheimare)
Tysk kejserlig fältherre; greve. Pappenheim var Tillys närmaste underbefälhavare i slagen vid Vita berget, vid Magdeburgs stormning och vid Breitenfeld samt Wallensteins närmaste man i slaget vid Lützen, där han stupade.
Ordspråk: känna sina pappenheimare: 'känna sitt folk', citat ur Friedrich von Schillers Wallensteins Tod.
-Stålhandske, sade han (Gustav II Adolf) och hejdade sin kolossala mörkbruna springare vid finnarnes sista led - I förstån väl hvarför jag ställt eder ytterst.
Mot oss står Pappenheim med sina walloner.... mer här
Gula Brigadens Hjältar, Pojkarnas Julbok 1944
Habsburg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
Överstatligheten ökar
Till framgångarna hör att nyordningen kommer att kunna genomföras relativt snabbt
SvD-ledare 10 december 2011
“The year 1941 will be, I am convinced, the historical year of a great European New Order.”
Adolf Hitler
Rogoff tycks mera ha varit intresserad av att odla sitt kändisskap
än att ta avstånd från hur forskningen använts politiskt
EU:s politiska ledare har tydligt ignorerat lärdomarna från den stora depressionen på 1930-talet.
Peter Wolodarski, signerat DN 28 april 2013
Finanskrisen gjorde Harvardekonomen Kenneth Rogoff till världskändis.
Hösten 2009 deltog jag i en stor journalistkonferens i Köpenhamn och såg uppståndelsen på nära håll.
Redaktörer från hela världen ställde sig i kö för att få Rogoff att signera ett exemplar av boken ”This time is different”
Budskapet kan sammanfattas så här: finanskriser är ett återkommande fenomen i mänsklighetens historia.
Varje gång de slår till tror många att något nytt och oväntat inträffat. Men tittar man bakåt framträder likheterna.
Bubblor blåses upp och spricker, vilket slår hårt mot ekonomin, jobben och statens finanser, ofta under segdragna perioder.
Denna del av Rogoffs och Reinarts arbete har aldrig varit omstridd.
Problemet uppstod när ekonomerna också gjorde gällande att BNP-tillväxten börjar ta allvarlig skada
när statsskulden överstiger 90 procent av bruttonationalprodukten.
Om staten bara återställer balansen i sin budget kommer ekonomin att återhämta sig, har budskapet lytt.
I dag är det deprimerande tydligt hur fel detta tänkande slagit. I stora delar av Europa, inklusive Storbritannien, har åtstramningarna bidragit till den sämsta utvecklingen sedan andra världskriget.
Mycket av det som händer för direkt tankarna till 1930-talet, konstaterar ekonomerna Barry Eichengreen och Brad DeLong i en aktuell essä.
Den gången begicks liknande allvarliga felgrepp i den ekonomiska politiken, vilket banade väg för nazisternas demokratiska maktövertagande i Tyskland.
Då som nu försöker land efter land att spara sig ur problemen, vilket resulterar i en kollektiv kollaps av efterfrågan.
I torsdagens New York Times försöker Rogoff och Reinhart ärerädda sig själva.
De medger misstaget och distanserar sig från hur deras forskning utnyttjats politiskt.
Vi har aldrig förespråkat omedelbara åtstramningar, hävdar de två, men pekar ändå på ett visst samband mellan höga skulder och låg tillväxt.
Så har det inte låtit när Rogoff åkt på världsturné de senaste åren.
Han tycks mera ha varit intresserad av att odla sitt kändisskap än att ta avstånd från hur forskningen använts politiskt, främst av konservativa partier.
Jag kan inte minnas några ljudliga protester när stora delar av Europa försökt kapa sina budgetunderskott på en och samma gång, mitt i depressionen.
EU:s politiska ledare har tydligt ignorerat lärdomarna från den stora depressionen på 1930-talet.
That Time - Trettiotalet - was different, i Tyskland
BBC har en artikel som väcker många tankar, vilket förmodligen var avsikten.
I USA och Storbritannien har man sedan 1930-talet en tradition av debatt mellan Kenynesianer och Hooverister.
Men som BBC skriver "In Germany, that argument did not happen. The politics of the 1930s in Germany were different".
Rolf Englund 27 april 2013
In the US and Britain, economists argue over whether government spending is the best way of prompting depressed economies into life.
It is an echo of the argument in the 1930s between "orthodox economics" and the new economics of John Maynard Keynes who argued that governments needed to spend
when interest rates were at rock bottom and there was substantial slack in the economy.
In Germany, that argument did not happen.
The politics of the 1930s in Germany were different, so today there is no Keynesian tradition.
Peter Wolodarski ställde frånga om vi har glömt lärdomarna från början av 1930-talet,
då president Hoover i USA och kansler Brüning i Weimar-Tyskland stod för ett förödande åtstramningstänkande?
Bra Böckers Världshistoria, Band 13, sid 156-157:
När dåvarande tyska regeringschefen Brünings sparsamhetsiver till slut också riktades mot statsbidragen till godsägarna öster om Elbe,
tröt /president/ Hindenburgs tålamod, och den 30 maj 1932 tillträdde en ny regering under ledning av den ytterst konservative tidigare centrumpolitikern Franz von Papen.
Hans regering hade praktiskt taget inget parlamentariskt stöd och förbluffade samtiden genom att majoriteten av ministrarna var adliga.
Socialdemokraterna fällde regeringen. Därefter utlystes nyval.
Resten är historia,som man brukar säga.
Europe is in more danger than at any time since the 1930s.
I believe that the dominant form of political organisation over the next decade will be nationalism.
We are one charismatic leader away from a complete re-ordering of the continent.
Thomas Pascoe, Telegeraph July 13th, 2012
The problem with reparations, halted under the Nazi Party in 1933, was not that the Germans were unable to pay a debt which amounted to 83pct of GDP in 1923: on the contrary, they were (I recommend AJP Taylor’s Origins of the Second World War on this point).
Instead, it was that neither Germany nor pre-Anschluss Austria recognised the "war guilt" clause in the Treaty of Versailles which justified such payments.
Not only did the debtors believe the debts unjust, so did the creditors. Sophisticated opinion in Britain, shared by Cabinet ministers and Keynes, held that the peace terms were unduly harsh on the Germans and would cause unnecessary deprivation. This combination of stubbornness and sympathy ensured that when debts eventually went unpaid, no nation intervened to support the existing financial system.
Betraktar man de senaste årens utveckling i Europa inser man att 30-talskollapsen inte alls är obegriplig eller omöjlig att upprepa.
Den dystra sanningen är ju att eurokrisen bär på många av de frön som en gång framkallade den stora depressionen.
Peter Wolodarski, Dagens Nyheter 10 juni 2012
Highly recommended
”Vi lär oss igen den hårda vägen att denna typ av åtstramningar, som tillämpas mitt under brinnande finanskris, bara leder till depression”, konstaterar den tidigare tyske utrikesministern Joschka Fischer i en aktuell kolumn (Project syndicate 25/5)
Han frågar: Har vi glömt lärdomarna från början av 1930-talet, då president Hoover i USA och kansler Brüning i Weimar-Tyskland stod för ett förödande åtstramningstänkande?
Peter Wolodarski, DN 27 maj 2012
Brüning
Europe's political centre is starting to crumble, replicating the pattern of the early 1930s
as the crisis ground into its third year under a similar mix of fiscal and monetary contraction.
Elected governments have already been swept away - or replaced by EU technocrats without a vote, indeed to prevent a vote
- in every eurozone state where unemployment has reached double-digits: Spain (23.6pc), Greece (21pc), Portugal (15pc), Ireland (14.7pc) and Slovakia (14pc).
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, 24 April 2012
Chancellor Heinrich Bruening’s austerity administration,
politically stalemated by the parliament, had begun governing by presidential fiat.
In a December 1931 decree, Bruening assumed "control of the whole economic machinery of the country" and
"reprieved Germany from imminent collapse," the Economist wrote
Bloomerg 28 februari 2012
German banks, unable to cope with reparations demands and massive conversions of Reichsmarks to gold, collapsed in late 1931, threatening both the financial system and the state. The Berlin stock market had faltered in1928. It soon became clear that banks hadn't revalued their book assets downward; selling them now meant serious losses. In this context, gold withdrawals triggered a panic.
Grekland, Carl Rudbeck, Melodifestivalen, Brüning, Ann-Charlotte Marteus och Don't mention the war
Rolf Englund blog 19 februari 2012
Heinrich Brüning
It is sometimes said that German attitudes to the economy and the current crisis are instructed by experience of Weimar inflation
Yet it wasn't hyperinflation that brought Hitler to power, but rather the depression of the early 1930s,
which in Germany's case was greatly exaggerated by the pro-cyclical austerity the government of the time insisted on applying to the problem.
Jeremy Warner, February 17th, 2012
While on the subject of historical parallels, there's another which has not yet been given sufficient an airing.
This was the vexing question of German war reparations after the slaughter of the First World War,
brilliantly identified by John Maynard Keynes at the time in his polemic, "Economic Consequences of the Peace",
as fundamentally unfair on the Germans. Keynes branded the Treaty of Versailles a "Carthaginian Peace".
"the 1930s are not so far away"
It is considered bad manners to accuse the inventors of the fiscal pact for the eurozone of not having learnt the lesson of German reparations after the first world war.
But the pact enshrines a similar intellectual error, and this needs saying.
Martin Taylor, Financial Times 10 February 2012
That it may be necessary to secure German support is beside the point: reparations were essential (with rather more justification) for French support at Versailles in 1919.
Grekland Albrecht Ritsch
Uppror, kaos och extremism ligger i luften.
En skrämmande parallell till Weimarrepublikens Tyskland när brutala åtstramningar
under Reichskanzler Heinrich Brüning banade väg för nazisterna i början av 1930-talet?
Tomas Lundin, SvD Näringsliv 8 februari 2012
Det hävdar historikern Albrecht Ritsch vid London School of Economics som säger att Lucas Papademos, Greklands premiärminister, på många sätt står inför samma situation. Då som nu var det gigantiska utlandsskulder som skulle betalas tillbaka, då som nu krävdes enorma uppoffringar av befolkningen.
The fixed-exchange mechanism had gone horribly wrong
The tragedy of the interwar years in Germany was that the Social Democrats - then the world’s foremost socialist party - became fatally tainted by acquiescing in /accepting/ Bruning’s deflation torture from 1930 to 1932.
They did so, of course, because they dared not confront the orthodoxies of the Gold Standard.
The result in Germany was the Reichstag election of July 1932 when the Communists and Nazis won over the half the seats.
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard 23 May 2010
By then the fixed-exchange mechanism had gone horribly wrong - in much the same way that EMU has gone horribly wrong - because the surplus countries were not recycling demand to maintain equilibrium. It had become a job-destruction machine.
Stabiliserinspolitik - Rebalancing - Finanskrisen - EMU - Tyskland och EMU
Hitler och skuldkrisen
Det finns en sak som mer än något annat skrämmer slag på tyskar och det är inflation.
Martin Ahlquist, Fokus, 11 november 2011
Det är visserligen 90 år sedan den tyska regeringen gjorde medborgarnas besparingar värdelösa genom att ohämmat trycka sedlar, men tyskarna har inte glömt vad det ledde fram till. Förtroendet för staten var lika med noll och grogrunden var lagd för Adolf Hitlers entré i politiken.
Rädslan för inflation är också huvudskälet till varför Tyskland för allt i världen inte vill ge Europeiska centralbanken alla de befogenheter som krävs för att bekämpa krisen
Det var inte inflationen som förde Hitler till makten,
som Fokus och många andra tror, det var arbetslösheten
Rolf Englund blog 13 november 2011
Det var inte inflationen - det var Depressionen
Germany "the new democracy survived serious threats to its existence in the early postwar years and
found a semblance of stability from 1924 to 1928,
only to be submerged by the collapse of the economy after the Wall Street crash of 1929."
Ian Kershaw, New York Times, February 3, 2008
Ian Kershaw, a professor of modern history at Sheffield University,
is the author of the forthcoming “Hitler, the Germans and the Final Solution.”
The Nazis’ spectacular surge in popular support
(2.6 percent of the vote in the 1928 legislative elections,
18.3 percent in 1930, 37.4 percent in July 1932) reflected the anger, frustration and resentment — but also hope — that Hitler was able to tap among millions of Germans.
Kommentar RE: Det intressanta är här bl a erinradet om att det var en felaktig penningpolitik som ledde till Kraschen 1929 och Depressionen, och därmed Hitler och det Andra Världskriget. Det finns de, se t ex Robert J. Samuelson i Newsweek, som med rätta anser jag, hävdar att den alltför låga räntan i USA var ett resultat av att USA vill stödja det engelska pundet som den engelska finansministern (han hette lustigt nog Winston Churchill) mot Keynes enträgna protester, 1925 hade bundit mot guldet och därmed mot dollarn vid den kurs som rådde före det Första Världskriget.
Se även Keynes ord om sparande och investeringar
Utan bindningen av pundkursen kanske Hitler i stället hade fortsatt som konstnär. En del säger att han var dålig konstnär, men nog var hans tavlor snyggare än den uppstoppade get som dumma borgare står och begrundar på det Moderna Museum som en regering, jag vill inte säga vilken, (Nu 2008 kan det sägas: Det var Bildt-regeringen) har låtit bygga för skattebetalarnas pengar.
Bra Böckers Världshistoria, Band 13, sid 156-157 anför härom:
Inrikespolitiskt lyckades man /i Tyskland/ stabilisera ekonomin
genom att införa ett nytt penningsystem 1923-24.
Inflationssedlarna växlades in till en kurs av en ny mark mot en
biljon gamla. Inflationsprocessen hade verkat som en storstilad
skuldsanering och därmed hade staten på nytt blivit
solvent. Slutet av tjugotalet präglades i Tyskland av ekonomisk
framgång och med den följde också en viss politisk
stabilisering... 1928 bildades en ny majoritetsregering med
socialdemokraten Herman Müller som kansler och den konservative
Gustav Stresemann som utrikesminister... I valet 1928 placerade
sig /Hitlers parti/ NSDAP - Nationalsocialistiska Tyska
Arbetareartiet / i raden av de många småpartierna och
fick 2,6 procent av rösterna...
Världskrisen ledde till
att regeringen sprack i mars 1930. Den avlöstes av en borgerlig
minoritetsregering under ledning av det katolska centrumpartiets
Heinrich Brüning.... Brüning, som var ekonom av
facket, mötte som så många andra länders
statsmän krisen med en deflationspolitik, och han gjorde det mer
konsekvent och energiskt än de flesta. Enligt hans mening gällde
det att anpassa hela ekonomin till de sjunkande priserna. Lönerna
och helst också skatterna måste reduceras, och
framförallt måste den offentliga budgeten balanseras för
att man skullel undgå en inflation. Resultatet blev en kraftig
nedskärning av köpkraften på hemmamarknaden, något
som gjorde det onda värre. Många företag gick i
konkurs. Den tunga industrin och byggnadsindustrin lamslogs nästan
helt, och 1932 registrerades nästan 6 miljoner arbetslösa.
Till dessa bör man troligen lägga ännu en miljon
långtidslediga som helt hade glidit ur det sociala systemet.
Med sjunkande privata inkomster följde minskade offentliga
skatteinkomster, och 1932 måste kommuner, städer och till
och med en delstat gå i konkurs och ställa sig under
riksadministration...
Då Brünings sparsamhetsiver till
slut också riktades mot statsbidragen till godsägarna
öster om Elbe, tröt /president/ Hindenburgs tålamod,
och den 30 maj 1932 tillträdde en ny regering under ledning
ytterst konservative tidigare centrumpolitikern Franz von Papen. Hans
regering hade praktiskt taget inget parlamentariskt stöd och
förbluffade samtiden genom att majoriteten av ministrarna var
adliga.
Socialdemokraterna fällde regeringen. Därefter utlystes nyval.
Det kan vara av intresse att ta del av motsvarande beskrivning i Encyclopedia Britannica Online:
Upon the fall of the coalition government of the Social Democrat Hermann Müller, Brüning was called on to form a new, more conservative ministry on March 28, 1930, without a Reichstag majority.
His policies, formed in response to the onset of the Great Depression, involved increased taxation, reduced government expenditure, high tariffs on foreign agricultural products, cutbacks in salaries and unemployment insurance benefits, and continued payment of the reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles (1919).
Brüning's austerity measures prevented any renewal of inflation, but they also paralyzed the German economy and resulted in skyrocketing unemployment and a drastic fall in German workers' standard of living.
On July 16, 1930, after the Reichstag rejected a major part of his plans, Brüning began governing by presidential emergency decree, using Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution as a basis for this step. On July 18 he dissolved the Reichstag, which returned after new elections in September 1930 with Communist and, more important, Nazi representation greatly increased. To accommodate this shift to the right, the Chancellor enacted a more nationalistic foreign policy. In October 1931, Brüning took over the foreign ministry while retaining the chancellorship. He helped President Paul von Hindenburg win reelection in the spring of 1932, but on May 30 of that year Brüning resigned, a victim of intrigues by General Kurt von Schleicher and others around Hindenburg.
The immediate cause of his dismissal was his project to partition several bankrupt East Elbian estates. Hindenburg, himself an eastern landowner, considered this plan Bolshevism, and his withdrawal of confidence left Brüning with no choice but to resign.
Brüning left Germany in 1934 and ultimately ended up in the United States, where he taught political science at Harvard University from 1937 to 1952.
We should not try to avoid 1929. We have already failed.
The best we can do now is to avoid 1930, 1931 and 1932
What about the €200bn European Union stimulus package that was agreed in a watered-down form by EU leaders on Friday?
Unfortunately, it is a public relations exercise first and foremost, designed to dupe people into believing that the EU is finally doing something.
Wolfgang Münchau, Financial Times, December 14 2008
Mars 1918
Överbefälhavaren Ferdinand Foch, Frankrikes konseljpresident Georges Clemenceau och general Philippe Pétain stod lutade över frontkartor i Fochs högkvarter mellan Beauvais och Compiègne.
Herrarna var bekymrade, mycket bekymrade.
Gates den 10 juni: USA kan inte fortsätta med ”att lägga allt knappare medel på länder som uppenbarligen är ovilliga att själva satsa resurser … på sitt eget försvar”
Per T Ohlsson, Sydsvenskan 26 juni 2011 med bra länkar
Germany’s incoming “grand coalition” of Christian Democrats and Social Democrats is about to commit the biggest economic policy error since unification – the attempt to pursue budget consolidation at the expense of all other economic policy goals. In doing so, it risks turning a five-year-long stagnation into a full-scale depression.
It would be more accurate, perhaps, to compare her /Ms Merkel/ to Heinrich Brüning, a Christian conservative who was German chancellor from 1930 to 1932.
Wolfgang Munchau, Financial Times, 7/11 2005
Wolfgang Munchau is an associate editor of the Financial Times
THE WORLD HITLER NEVER MADE:
Alternate History and the Memory of Nazism,
by Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, Cambridge University Press £19.99, 518 pages
reviewd by Vernon Bogdanor, Financial Times; May 28, 2005
Visions of Victory: The Hopes of Eight World War II Leaders, by Gerhard L. Weinberg, Cambridge University Press £16.99, 284 pages
We are obsessed because we do not understand. How could such a man achieve and wield power in a sophisticated modern society and with popular support?
Even today Hitler remains a more frightening phenomenon than Stalin. For while Soviet communism imposed itself upon a largely unwilling people, there can be little doubt that Hitler would have won a free election in Germany at any time between 1933 and 1942.
Nazism is also an obsession of American historians. These two books are attempts to exorcise it. Gavriel Rosenfeld has had the interesting idea of analysing the numerous alternative histories of Hitler. He explores four counterfactual themes - that the Nazis won the second world war; that Hitler escaped death in 1945 and survived into the postwar era; that he died before 1933; and that the Holocaust was completed, avenged or undone altogether.
Gerhard Weinberg is probably the world's leading expert on Hitler's foreign policy and his book on the second world war, A World At Arms, published in 1994, is by far the best single-volume history of that global conflict. In Visions of Victory, he explores how eight leaders - Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Chiang Kai-shek, Stalin, Churchill, de Gaulle and Roosevelt - imagined the world that would succeed the war, a world that is, after all, still very much the one in which we live.
That this nightmare vision did not come to pass is largely due to Winston Churchill. Admittedly, Britain could not, on its own, defeat Hitler, but in 1940, when Stalin was his ally, Britain could ensure that he did not win. Yet the postwar world was not to be Churchill's world, since he did not recognise the force of the idea of self-determination of colonial peoples. Churchill, Roosevelt declared, "thinks only of the colour of their skin; it is when he talks of India and China that you remember he is a Victorian".
It was because Roosevelt understood that the colonial peoples would achieve independence that his postwar vision "came to be realised to a greater extent than that of any of the other World War II leaders".
Few Germans regret that they do not rule Ukraine, few Italians regret the loss of their African empire and few Japanese wish that they still controlled Borneo. And, it may be added, there are not many in Britain who would like to see Britain ruling India.
Visions of Victory is a beautifully written and wide-ranging synthesis of a large and burgeoning literature. It is based on deep knowledge and profound judgment. It is a masterpiece of historical writing that should be read by anyone interested in the origins of the world in which we live.
Farewell to the Mark
By Amity Shlaes
member of The Wall Street Journal's editorial board.
Tyskarna lever med erfarenheterna av det kaos som inflationen skapade i början av 30-talet.
När Churchill som finansminister annonserade återgången till guldmyntfot till förkrigsparitet i april 1925
ansåg Keynes att denna innebar en tioprocentig övervärdering av pundet och skrev en omtalad artikel "The Econocmic Consequences of Mr Churchill", där han anklagade finansministeriets experter för felaktiga kalkyler och för att de underskattat svårigheterna att få till stånd lönesänkningar för att återställa en rimlig pundkurs och undvika arbetslöshet. .. Ett urval av de bästa artiklarna (under mellankrigstiden), som visar Keynes litterära storhet, gavs ut med titeln "Essays in Persuasion" (1931).
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