ENTREVISTA A CARMEN REINHART

Hace algunos días, la economista de Harvard Carmen Reinhart, famosa por sus estudios en los últimos años junto a Kenneth Rogoff, fue entrevistada por el diario alemán Der Spiegel. Esta entrevista tuvo lugar pocos días antes de que surgiera la polémica sobre la metodología de Reinhart y Rogoff para llegar a sugerir que cuando la deuda pública que acumulan los gobiernos supera el 90% del PIB, se genera un lastre en el crecimiento. Sobre esta polémica te hablé recientemente.

Hoy quiero detallarte algunas opiniones interesantes expresadas por Reinhart.

"Only when inflation picks up, which is ultimately going to happen, will it become obvious that central banks have become subservient to governments."

Sobre la posibilidad de que la gente pueda perder sus ahorros, Reinhart dijo: "no doubt, our pensions are screwed." (No hay duda, nuestras pensiones están jodidas)

Sobre los gobiernos, opinó: "... governments are incapable of reducing their debts and everyday savers will pay the price." 

SPIEGEL: You mean some kind of haircut? (¿Se refiere a quitas?)

Reinhart: Yes. But we are in an environment where politicians are very reluctant to do write-offs. So what happens is that money is transferred from savers to borrowers via negative interest rates. (Sí, pero vivimos en un entorno donde los políticos tienen aversión a reconocer las pérdidas. Por ello, la alternativa es transferir dinero de los ahorradores a los endeudados vía tipos de interés negativos.)

Reinhart comentó: El nombre técnico de esto es "represión financiera".

SPIEGEL: So what should be done?

Reinhart: The best way of dealing with a debt overhang is to never get into one. Once you have one, what can you do? You can pray for higher growth, but good luck! Historically it doesn't happen -- you seldom just grow yourself out of debt. You need a combination of austerity, so that you don't add further to the pile of debt, and higher inflation, which is effectively a subtle form of taxation …

SPIEGEL: But is it not a declaration of bankruptcy for democracy if central bankers, who haven't even been elected, have to step in to fix the problem in the end?

Reinhart: I think the biggest mistake that European policy-makers are now making is not to put debt restructuring more explicitly on the table.

SPIEGEL: Are you referring to Greece?

Reinhart: Greece has had its restructuring, that's history. But look at Ireland and Spain. Private senior bank debt has not been written off, despite the fact that underlying asset prices in those countries have collapsed and are still collapsing.

SPIEGEL: That sounds like a perpetual motion …

Reinhart: ... of course it is!

En fin, la de Reinhart es sólo una opinión más sobre la profunda crisis que vivimos. No obstante, seguro que a los alemanes que hayan leído la entrevista no les anima a aceptar el deseo europeo (especialmente de Francia e Italia) de montar una orgía monetaria como la americana o la japonesa, porque deducen quién hará el papel de ahorrador y quién el de endeudado, en Europa. Luego llegará la pregunta evidente que se harán los alemanes: ... y entonces, ¿qué debemos hacer?

Como hoy vamos de opiniones, termino con la palabras del ex gobernador de la Fed Kevin Warsh en el Milken Institute. Warsh dijo: The Fed has "enabled" Washington to do nothing, since the politicians expect the same "rabbit out of the hat" rescue that occurred in the darkest days of the financial crisis. También añadió: Since the financial crisis, Washington has done its level best to focus on GDP in the next quarter, or perhaps the election... Finalmente, Warsh concluyó: "There Is No Plan B." The Fed has fewer degrees of freedom and the rest of Washington is not coming to the rescue; and furthermore "the ability of a central bank, exclusively, without the rest of Washington doing any bit of the task, to turn an economy from a modest recovery to a robust one is an experiment that is untested - and will not prove to be successful."