Re: Financial Times: Nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland und Japan retten

verfasst von vladtepes, 29.12.2002, 13:21

-->>Only a disaster can save Japan and Germany
>By John Plender
>Published: December 26 2002 19:39 | Last Updated: December 26 2002 19:39
>
>
>Only a disaster can save Japan and GermanyOnly a disaster can save Japan and GermanyMuch has recently been made of the similar nature of the economic problems that afflict Germany and Japan. Both countries have weak banking systems and Germany now appears vulnerable to the deflationary disease that already plagues Japan. Both have made serious economic policy mistakes over the past decade. And both will have to struggle against a powerful demographic tide to generate economic growth in future decades, when a dwindling workforce will have to maintain a growing mass of retired people.
>
>No less important than this economic diagnosis is the broader political question. Why is it that these hitherto highly successful countries have found it so hard to confront their respective difficulties? For in both cases governments have signally failed to measure up to the challenges they face.
>Despite presenting a reformist agenda to the Japanese electorate, the government of Junichiro Koizumi has achieved precious little in its economic policies. Germany, meantime, suffers from what Thomas Mayer, Deutsche Bank's chief European economist, calls a complacent electorate and weak political leadership. Under Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor, the ruling coalition has failed adequately to tackle a creaking tax and benefit system or to deregulate markets that are palpably sclerotic.
>Part of the problem is that these countries suffer from what might be termed the paralysis of the rich. In order to persuade electorates of the need for radical change it is necessary to generate a sense of crisis. In Japan, despite all the economic difficulties of the past decade, per capita gross domestic product stood at $37,600 in 2000, while the comparable figure for Germany, inevitably lower because of unification, was $22,530.
>These, then, are prosperous countries. And because their political processes are rooted in consensualism it can take large shocks to bring about change. Yet they also manage to be remarkably shock-resistant. In Germany, unemployment is high but the generous social security system reduces the incentive for the unemployed to look for work. A reduced participation rate in turn exacerbates the demographic problem. And demographic problems, of their nature, do not induce crises because they grow worse at a snail's pace.
>In Japan the more obvious source of a shock is a debt crisis. Since the bursting of the stock market bubble, the government has sought to compensate for the decline in corporate investment by running ever larger fiscal deficits. So public sector debt has risen to unprecedented levels. Yet it is virtually impossible to have a fiscal crisis in Japan when short-term interest rates are near-zero and the yield on long term government bonds is a mere 1.5 per cent.
>So, too, in the private sector, where over-indebted"zombie" companies go on for ever because debt servicing costs are low. Deflation and bad policy have substantially removed the discipline of bankruptcy from Japanese capitalism.
>Meanwhile, the historical experience of very high or hyper-inflation in Germany and Japan means that policymakers are highly orthodox. At German behest the European Central Bank was given a constitution stricter than that of the Bundesbank. Its interest rates, even if suitable for the eurozone as a whole, are now too tight for the Germans.
>For their part, policymakers at the Bank of Japan have been reluctant to contemplate the unorthodox moves that may be needed in a period of deflation, when nominal short-term interest rates are zero but real rates are rising because of a falling price level. It could be sensible, for example, to increase money supply by having the central bank or the commercial banks finance the budget deficit. Conventional bankers demur.
>Many of these constraints on policy reflect the characteristic of consensually managed economies noted by the economist Mancur Olsen - namely, that they are often hostage to the stultifying influence of interest groups. In Germany and also Italy, which faces many similar problems, the unions have been particularly effective in slowing labour market and pensions reform. In Japan vested interests in the Liberal Democratic party, with their strong money links to sectors such as construction, have prevented much radical change.
>It is easier to cut through such vested interests in a predominantly two-party political system with a first-past-the-post electoral set-up than in countries where coalition government is the norm. The key to the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s in the UK, for example, was that a government elected by a minority of the voters was able to impose its will on the reluctant majority, on the principle that Lord Hailsham dubbed elective dictatorship.
>New Zealand provides another recent example. Its 1980s experiment in liberal economics under David Lange and Roger Douglas was certainly non-consensual and the electorate's distaste for such harsh (and not noticeably effective) medicine ensured an early change in the system to proportional representation.
>Part of the dilemma faced by consensually managed countries is that things often have to become a great deal worse before they start getting better. This poses a challenge for the capital markets, where the lion's share of the money is managed by impatient Anglophones. Yet, interestingly, perceptions about Japan and Germany have been at odds.
>In the Japanese stock market foreigners have been the marginal buyers of stock as the market has fallen over the past 12 years. Foreign fund managers have continued to absorb equities as members of keiretsu, or loose-knit conglomerates, have sold their cross-holdings in response to financial pressure.
>With Germany, capital has been less forgiving. For a period before the introduction of the euro, it became excited about the prospects for restructuring in continental Europe generally and Germany in particular. Then, as the pace of change proved slow, disillusionment set in. Hence the euro's weakness until recently.
>Why capital has been more kind to Japan, given that its problems are much deeper-seated than Germany's, is moot. Maybe its economic performance until the 1990s had been so spectacular that it retained an additional residue of goodwill with fund managers. Maybe some of them were still buying into the world's second largest economy on the basis of the weights in a global index.
>What is clear is that a succession of shocks has not been enough to turn round these two huge economies. History tells us that when a big enough shock comes along, these countries can change astonishingly fast. The question is whether the Germans and Japanese will have to become poor again, to be shocked out of their affluent paralysis and back into respectable economic growth.
>This column appears on alternate Fridays
>
>
>Only a disaster can save Japan and GermanyOnly a disaster can save Japan and GermanyMuch has recently been made of the similar nature of the economic problems that afflict Germany and Japan. Both countries have weak banking systems and Germany now appears vulnerable to the deflationary disease that already plagues Japan. Both have made serious economic policy mistakes over the past decade. And both will have to struggle against a powerful demographic tide to generate economic growth in future decades, when a dwindling workforce will have to maintain a growing mass of retired people.
>No less important than this economic diagnosis is the broader political question. Why is it that these hitherto highly successful countries have found it so hard to confront their respective difficulties? For in both cases governments have signally failed to measure up to the challenges they face.
>Despite presenting a reformist agenda to the Japanese electorate, the government of Junichiro Koizumi has achieved precious little in its economic policies. Germany, meantime, suffers from what Thomas Mayer, Deutsche Bank's chief European economist, calls a complacent electorate and weak political leadership. Under Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor, the ruling coalition has failed adequately to tackle a creaking tax and benefit system or to deregulate markets that are palpably sclerotic.
>Part of the problem is that these countries suffer from what might be termed the paralysis of the rich. In order to persuade electorates of the need for radical change it is necessary to generate a sense of crisis. In Japan, despite all the economic difficulties of the past decade, per capita gross domestic product stood at $37,600 in 2000, while the comparable figure for Germany, inevitably lower because of unification, was $22,530.
>These, then, are prosperous countries. And because their political processes are rooted in consensualism it can take large shocks to bring about change. Yet they also manage to be remarkably shock-resistant. In Germany, unemployment is high but the generous social security system reduces the incentive for the unemployed to look for work. A reduced participation rate in turn exacerbates the demographic problem. And demographic problems, of their nature, do not induce crises because they grow worse at a snail's pace.
>In Japan the more obvious source of a shock is a debt crisis. Since the bursting of the stock market bubble, the government has sought to compensate for the decline in corporate investment by running ever larger fiscal deficits. So public sector debt has risen to unprecedented levels. Yet it is virtually impossible to have a fiscal crisis in Japan when short-term interest rates are near-zero and the yield on long term government bonds is a mere 1.5 per cent.
>So, too, in the private sector, where over-indebted"zombie" companies go on for ever because debt servicing costs are low. Deflation and bad policy have substantially removed the discipline of bankruptcy from Japanese capitalism.
>Meanwhile, the historical experience of very high or hyper-inflation in Germany and Japan means that policymakers are highly orthodox. At German behest the European Central Bank was given a constitution stricter than that of the Bundesbank. Its interest rates, even if suitable for the eurozone as a whole, are now too tight for the Germans.
>For their part, policymakers at the Bank of Japan have been reluctant to contemplate the unorthodox moves that may be needed in a period of deflation, when nominal short-term interest rates are zero but real rates are rising because of a falling price level. It could be sensible, for example, to increase money supply by having the central bank or the commercial banks finance the budget deficit. Conventional bankers demur.
>Many of these constraints on policy reflect the characteristic of consensually managed economies noted by the economist Mancur Olsen - namely, that they are often hostage to the stultifying influence of interest groups. In Germany and also Italy, which faces many similar problems, the unions have been particularly effective in slowing labour market and pensions reform. In Japan vested interests in the Liberal Democratic party, with their strong money links to sectors such as construction, have prevented much radical change.
>It is easier to cut through such vested interests in a predominantly two-party political system with a first-past-the-post electoral set-up than in countries where coalition government is the norm. The key to the Thatcherite reforms of the 1980s in the UK, for example, was that a government elected by a minority of the voters was able to impose its will on the reluctant majority, on the principle that Lord Hailsham dubbed elective dictatorship.
>New Zealand provides another recent example. Its 1980s experiment in liberal economics under David Lange and Roger Douglas was certainly non-consensual and the electorate's distaste for such harsh (and not noticeably effective) medicine ensured an early change in the system to proportional representation.
>Part of the dilemma faced by consensually managed countries is that things often have to become a great deal worse before they start getting better. This poses a challenge for the capital markets, where the lion's share of the money is managed by impatient Anglophones. Yet, interestingly, perceptions about Japan and Germany have been at odds.
>In the Japanese stock market foreigners have been the marginal buyers of stock as the market has fallen over the past 12 years. Foreign fund managers have continued to absorb equities as members of keiretsu, or loose-knit conglomerates, have sold their cross-holdings in response to financial pressure.
>With Germany, capital has been less forgiving. For a period before the introduction of the euro, it became excited about the prospects for restructuring in continental Europe generally and Germany in particular. Then, as the pace of change proved slow, disillusionment set in. Hence the euro's weakness until recently.
>Why capital has been more kind to Japan, given that its problems are much deeper-seated than Germany's, is moot. Maybe its economic performance until the 1990s had been so spectacular that it retained an additional residue of goodwill with fund managers. Maybe some of them were still buying into the world's second largest economy on the basis of the weights in a global index.
>What is clear is that a succession of shocks has not been enough to turn round these two huge economies. History tells us that when a big enough shock comes along, these countries can change astonishingly fast. The question is whether the Germans and Japanese will have to become poor again, to be shocked out of their affluent paralysis and back into respectable economic growth.
>This column appears on alternate Friday


ick nix good englisch können.
wer kann kurz schreiben worum es geht?!

THX

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gesamter Thread:

• Financial Times: Nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland und Japan retten - kingsolomon, 29.12.2002, 12:52
  • Re: Financial Times: Nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland und Japan retten - vladtepes, 29.12.2002, 13:21
    • kurz übersetzt... und kommentiert - nasdaq, 29.12.2002, 13:59
      • Brutalo-Translation - HB, 29.12.2002, 14:39
      • Re: kurz übersetzt... und kommentiert - vladtepes, 29.12.2002, 15:20
      • Re: Ein Loch ist im Eimer, oh Henry, oh Henry - Tempranillo, 29.12.2002, 16:03
        • Re: nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland noch retten - die hammwa doch - Baldur der Ketzer, 29.12.2002, 17:09
          • Re:ab Mittwoch 7009,- Aufwandentschädigung, 3503 Aufwandspauschale und - kingsolomon, 29.12.2002, 17:24
          • Re: nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland noch retten - die hammwa doch - Tassie Devil, 30.12.2002, 01:29
            • farblose Politgladiatoren und heutige WeichspülwendehälseInnen - Baldur der Ketzer, 30.12.2002, 02:22
          • Re: nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland noch retten - die hammwa doch - Uwe, 30.12.2002, 02:07
            • Re: nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland noch retten - die hammwa doch - Baldur der Ketzer, 30.12.2002, 02:30
  • Es beginnt die gegenseitige Schuldzuweisung für die unvermeidliche große Krise - Wal Buchenberg, 29.12.2002, 16:22
    • Re: Yo, in Nordkorea würden nicht soviele verhungern, wenn die bösen Amis mehr - kingsolomon, 29.12.2002, 17:04
  • Re: Financial Times: Nur eine Katastrophe kann Deutschland und Japan retten - Tassie Devil, 29.12.2002, 16:55