Afinal de contas, parece que quem obrigou José Sócrates a encarar a realidade do país e a pedir ajuda externa foram Mário Soares e Teixeira dos Santos.
Como escreve Arnold Kling, a crítica não supreende mas é sintomático que esteja a sair dos meios libertários e seja partilhada por economistas mainstream como Amar Bhide e Edmund Phelps (Nobel da Economia em 2006): More Harm Than Good – How the IMF’s business model sabotages properly functioning capitalism.
“The Greek debacle and the North African drama raise existential questions about the IMF. Responsible governments have no business borrowing vast sums from abroad, rather than from domestic sources. That’s what tinpot regimes do. And lending even more to borrowers who can’t pay what they already owe? That’s what loan sharks and mafiosi do.
The IMF’s business model sabotages properly functioning capitalism, victimizing ordinary people while benefiting the elites. Do we need international agencies to enable irresponsible—verging on immoral—borrowing and lending? Instead of dreaming up too-clever-by-half schemes to stumble through crises after they happen, why not just stop imprudent banks from accommodating foreign borrowing by feckless governments? After all, it’s French and German taxpayers who are on the hook—not just the Greeks and the Irish.”
“The ECB’s Three Mistakes in the Greek Debt Crisis” de Jeff Frankels
By now just about everybody agrees that the European bailout of Greece has failed: The debt will have to be restructured. As has been evident for well over a year, it is not possible to think of a plausible combination of Greek budget balance, sovereign risk premium, and economic growth rates that imply anything other than an explosive path for the future ratio of debt to GDP.(…)
The third mistake was the failure to send Greece to the IMF early in the crisis, before Greek interest rates went to 600 basis points (…). By January 2010 the need for the [Intenational Monetary] Fund should have been clear. Rather than going into shock, leaders in Frankfurt and Brussels could have welcomed the Greek crisis as a useful opportunity to establish a precedent for the long-term life of the euro. The idea that such a problem would eventually arise somewhere in euroland cannot have come as a surprise. After all, why had the architects written the Maastricht fiscal criteria and the No Bailout Clause (1991) and the Stability & Growth Pact (1997)? Skeptical German taxpayers believed that, before the project was done, they would be asked to bail out some profligate Mediterranean country. European elites adopted the fiscal rules precisely to combat these fears. (…)
But the reaction of leaders in both Frankfurt and Brussels was that going to the [Intenational Monetary] Fund was unthinkable, that this was a problem to be settled within Europe. They chose to play for time instead, to treat insolvency as illiquidity. Against all evidence — despite a decade of SGP [em português, o PEC] violations — they still wish to believe that they can impose fiscal discipline on member states. Despite two decades in which citizens of Germany and other European countries have expressed clearly that they do not share their leaders’ enthusiasm for Economic and Monetary Union, the latter apparently still wish to believe that further progress to political and fiscal union is possible. The emu has long since become an ostrich, burying its head in the sand.
It turned out that the German taxpayers were right all along. How, in light of that democratic deficit, can anyone think that Europe is ready for a transfer union?
Pois é. Afinal de contas quem é que anda a enganar quem?
Juro do empréstimo europeu a Portugal será “acima de 5,5
Pedro Pita Barros: “punishment phase ? make an example out of this small country to avoid larger ones getting into the same troubles. Seems the more plausible explanation to me. But then it should be clearly stated, to avoid misinterpretations about the risk of the bailout plan.”
Francisco Assis tinha pedido para “não entrarmos em euforia” após a comunicação em Primeiro-Ministro preferiu dizer ao páis o que não continha o acordo com a “troika”. Com excepção de alguns “abrantes” já naturalmente excitados, os portugueses terão feito a vontade a Assis. Especialmente após saberem as medidas previstas no acordo. Parece que nos restantes paísses membros a euforia não foi exactamente o adjectivo que descreve a reacção dominantes. Segundo o DE, “uma fonte diplomática de um país conservador” (sic) terá dito “”Surpreende-me que um programa de austeridade que implica perda de soberania seja apresentado como uma vitória negocial“. No Financial Times, Wolfgang Munchau também não entra em euforias:
“The Greek government played it relatively straight but Portugal’s crisis management has been, and remains, appalling.
José Sócrates, prime minister, has chosen to delay applying for a financial rescue package until the last minute. His announcement last week was a tragi-comic highlight of the crisis. With the country on the brink of financial extinction, he gloated on national television that he had secured a better deal than Ireland and Greece. In addition, he claimed the agreement would not cause much pain. When the details emerged a few days later, we could see that none of this was true. The package contains savage spending cuts, freezes in public sector wages and pensions, tax rises and a forecast of two years’ deep recession.
You cannot run a monetary union with the likes of Mr Sócrates
ADENDA: Bastante curisosa esta nota de Pedro Martins “Passados mais de tres dias uteis da apresentacao do Memorando, o site do governo ainda nao o disponibiliza – nem a versao original, muito menos uma traducao em portugues. Pelo contrario, insiste no anuncio das nao-medidas.”
Mais uma vez todos os contribuintes vão ser chamados a pagar durante longos e penosos anos o laxismo orçamental do governo e desregramento dos bancos nacionais. Os credores internacionais que durante anos alimentaram esta irresponsabilidade não só não serão penalizados como serão os principais beneficiários deste plano.
O ilustre deputado Saldanha Galamba tenta aqui descodificar o seu primeiro post. Recorda-me o famoso Tino de Rans e até um simples plebeu consegue rebater a argumentação em poucas linhas.
Ora vamos lá ver. As medidas dos PEC IV (ou mesmo as que constam do memorando da troika – e ao contrário do que afirma o deputado as medias estruturais não são uma pequenita diferença) não anulam a necessidade da ajuda finaceira. O ilustre representante de Santarém estará recordado das dificuldades e necessidades de financiamento público assim como das actuais rupturas de tesouraria e atrasos de pagamento que se multiplicam nos organismo do estado. Não foi só Jürgen Kröger que falou nas consequências do atraso no pedido de ajuda. Os representantes do BCE e do FMI reforçaram esta ideia. A sua tentiva de desvalorizar a opinião descredibilizando o seu emissor é reveladora da pobreza da sua argumentação.
Miguel Noronha
O Intermitente (reconstruido) 