Calvinist destruction

Que me conhece sabe deste meu ponto fraco, I love sounbytes.
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Por isso, ao ler este texto de Evans Pritchard "Does the world have the courage to deal with its debts?" não pude deixar sorrir com o termo Calvinist destruction.
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"There are three ways out of our mess. We can pursue 1930s liquidation that purges debt through mass default. Such Calvinist destruction cannot be imposed on a modern democracy.
We can devalue debt by deliberate inflation. This will backfire as bond vigilantes boycott government debt - unless rigged by capital controls or "administrative measures". You see where this leads.
Or we can try to right the ship by paying down our debts, very slowly, by sweat and toil, navigating a treacherous course between the Scylla and Charybdis of the twin-flations, for as long as it takes. This is the only responsible course left we as we face the devastating consequences of our own credit delusions. Are we up it?"

A via Espartana (parte II)

Continuado daqui.
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"“This was not a crisis of panic. It is crisis of massive deleveraging. The shadow banking system has disappeared.”
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The root problem is that the deficit spenders of the Anglosphere, Club Med, and Eastern Europe are being forced to retrench: yet the surplus exporters of Germany and Asia cannot — or will not — create enough demand to compensate. China is growing fast but it has a GDP of $3 trillion, far too small to lift the $40 trillion bloc of OECD economies (North America, Europe, Japan) out of the quagmire."
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"The great error is to think of this as a financial crisis. Bank failures are a symptom, not the cause. He said there was “a structural weakness in global demand” that has been building for a quarter century."
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E o grand finale:
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"Any attempt by the US to inflate its way out of this debt trap risks setting off a “disorderly collapse of the dollar”.
Washington will not opt for this deliberately. Unfortunately, it may drift into such an outcome as the path of least political resistance.
Yes, but I can see plenty of other candidates for this sort of beggar-thy-neighbour somnambulism.
Others may yet beat the US to currency debauchery"
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Trechos de Evans-Pritchard recortados de "Bears still growl at the Sanctum Sanctorum of the policy elites"

Can't solve debt-induced crisis with more debt

Deleveraging-induced downturn inevitable.
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The problema was caused by irresponsible lending and the only way out is to eliminate that debt.
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Um vídeo interessante sobre uma palestra de Steve Keen.
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BTW, leiam o texto da página 7 deste relatório da OCDE... de Junho de 2007

When Will The Recovery Begin? Never.

"When Will The Recovery Begin? Never."
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"Problem is, consumers won't start spending until they have money in their pockets and feel reasonably secure. But they don't have the money, and it's hard to see where it will come from. They can't borrow. Their homes are worth a fraction of what they were before, so say goodbye to home equity loans and refinancings. One out of ten home owners is under water -- owing more on their homes than their homes are worth. Unemployment continues to rise, and number of hours at work continues to drop. Those who can are saving. Those who can't are hunkering down, as they must."
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"My prediction, then? Not a V, not a U. But an X. This economy can't get back on track because the track we were on for years -- featuring flat or declining median wages, mounting consumer debt (à atenção do Forum para a Competitividade e das suas teorias de redução administrativa de salários), and widening insecurity, not to mention increasing carbon in the atmosphere -- simply cannot be sustained.
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The X marks a brand new track -- a new economy. What will it look like? Nobody knows. All we know is the current economy can't "recover" because it can't go back to where it was before the crash. So instead of asking when the recovery will start, we should be asking when and how the new economy will begin."