Painel internacional
Uma nova corrida do ouro
Os investidores de ouro estão festejando como se fosse 1849. O preço do metal precioso amarelo atingiu ainda outra alta recorde na quarta-feira. Perto de US$ 1,1 mil a onça, você tem que perguntar para quanto mais o ouro pode chegar nos próximos meses. Seriam US$ 1.200? US$ 1.300? Caramba, US$ 1.500 estaria fora de questão? A Corrida do Ouro de 2009 foi impressionante de se ver. Ao contrário de alguns picos anteriores de preços, a “boa notícia” sobre a recente subida do ouro é que não parece ser devido a preocupações sobre um iminente colapso do sistema financeiro. O ouro disparou no início de 2008, por exemplo, quando o Bear Stearns estava à beira do colapso. Em vez disso, o ouro subiu recentemente ao mesmo tempo em que o dólar se enfraqueceu. Ouro, junto com outros metais como prata e cobre e commodities, como petróleo, estão se beneficiando dos temores de inflação.
E mais:
Fed vê taxa básica perto de zero por período “prolongado”
Banco da Inglaterra deve aumentar estímulos
Trabalhadores da Opel ameaçam fazer greve
Lucro da Unilever supera as estimativas
Fed vê taxa básica perto de zero por período “prolongado”
O Federal Reserve (Fed, banco central) dos Estados Unidos, expressou na quarta-feira confiança crescente de que uma recuperação da economia está em construção, mesmo que tenha ficado preso ao seu compromisso de manter os custos dos empréstimos próximos de zero por “um período prolongado”. Como esperado, o Banco Central encerrou a reunião de dois dias à noite, com a decisão de manter as taxas de juro de referência em uma faixa de zero a 0,25%. A votação foi unânime. Em comunicado, o Fed disse que a economia dos EUA “continuou a subir” desde a última reunião em setembro, mas expressou preocupação de que a recuperação era passível de ser silenciada. “Os gastos domésticos parecem estar se expandindo, mas continua limitado pela perda em curso de empregos, lento crescimento da renda, perda de riqueza em habitação e crédito apertado”, disse. Enquanto enfatizava os riscos, o Fed foi um pouco mais otimista do que em setembro, quando simplesmente disse que os gastos estavam se “estabilizando”.
Banco da Inglaterra deve aumentar estímulos
O Banco da Inglaterra (BoE, na sigla em inglês) pode aumentar o seu plano de compra de títulos em 50 bilhões de libras (US$ 83 bilhões) hoje, enquanto os banqueiros centrais e políticos lutam para recuperar o sistema bancário da Grã-Bretanha e arrastar a economia para fora da recessão. Os nove membros do Comitê de Política Monetária, debaixo do presidente do BoE, Mervyn King, deverão expandir o programa de compra de ativos para 225 bilhões de libras no dia 12, em Londres, mostra a mediana de 48 previsões da pesquisa da Bloomberg News. Que se segue à promessa do primeiro-ministro Gordon Brown nesta semana, de gastar quase 40 bilhões de libras em um segundo resgate de dois dos maiores bancos do país.
Trabalhadores da Opel ameaçam fazer greve
Os trabalhadores da montadora Opel na Alemanha irão à greve, depois de protestar contra a decisão da matriz norte-americana General Motors de não vender suas operações europeias. A reviravolta da GM veio poucos dias antes do acordo de venda de participação maioritária na Opel e Vauxhall à fabricante canadense de autopeças Magna e o banco russo Sberbank. Nos termos desse acordo, os 25.000 trabalhadores da Opel na Alemanha receberam a promessa de que nenhuma fábrica seria fechada. O sindicato teme agora que a GM vá fechar fábricas na Alemanha e cortar mais empregos. A montadora disse que planeja cortar cerca de 10.000 postos de trabalho como parte da reestruturação de suas operações na Europa, embora ainda não tenha dito nada sobre onde serão e não se pronunciou sobre se as fábricas devem ou não serão fechadas. No entanto, a GM disse que seu plano é semelhante, embora não idêntico, ao combinado com a Magna e o Sberbank.
Lucro da Unilever supera as estimativas
A Unilever disse nesta quinta-feira que o lucro líquido do terceiro trimestre caiu 36%, mas as vendas subjacentes superaram as expectativas, com os volumes crescendo fortemente pelo segundo trimestre consecutivo e margens aumentando. A fabricante do sorvete Ben & Jerry’s e produtos domésticos como Dove, Lynx e CIF registrou um lucro líquido de 1,05 bilhão de euros (US$ 1,56 bilhão) para os três meses até 30 de setembro, em comparação com os 1,64 bilhão de euros um ano antes, quando o número de vendas aumentou a linha de lucro. As vendas caíram 2%, de 10,43 bilhões de euros para 10,2 bilhões de euros.
Não entra na essência de um dinheiro que funciona, um que seja realmente sonoro e circule sem peias, ou seja, um que esteja em acordo com a Geometria, Tarot e Astrologia.
No mais , vale pela discussão de pontos normalmente olvidados pela mídia financista.
The Fallacy of the (Super)Neutrality of Money
Mises Daily: Thursday, November 5, 2009 by Thorsten Polleit
On the Neutrality and Superneutrality of Money
Today’s mainstream macroeconomic theory typically focuses on aggregate consequences resulting from policy measures, such as the effect on output and prices of a rise in the money stock. One crucial assumption is that money is neutral.[1]
Money is said to be neutral if an increase in the money stock leads to a proportional and permanent increase in prices and leaves real economic activity (such as output, investment and employment) unaffected. So, a rise in the steady growth rate of the money stock is said to lead to an identical rise in the steady growth rate of prices.
The hypothesis of the neutrality of money is mostly assumed to hold in the long term, while in the short-to-medium term the idea is that a rise in the money stock may well affect economic activity. This is largely attributable to surprise (and transaction-cost) effects.
For instance, an unexpected rise in the money stock induces changes in relative prices and therefore affects consumption and investment. Eventually, however, market agents adjust their dispositions (wages, contracts, etc.) to higher prices, and economic activity returns to its original level. So, the new money increases prices, but it does not increase production.
The neutrality-of-money hypothesis does not rule out that changes in the money growth rate may have permanent effects on the level of economic activity. In fact, a rise in the growth rate of the money stock (from, say, 4% a year to 5% a year) may be thought of as having the potential of pushing production to a permanently higher level of output.
Money is said to be superneutral, if changes in the growth rate of the money supply exert no effects on output. In other words, the hypothesis of the superneutrality of money would say that economic activity is independent of money growth.
From the viewpoint of the Austrian School of Economics, the hypothesis of the superneutrality of money must be strongly rejected, first and foremost, for methodological reasons. To show this, one should start with briefly reviewing the nature of money.
What Money Really Is
Money is the universally accepted means of exchange.[2] And as Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) pointed out: the exchange function is money’s sole function. All other functions — unit of account, store of value, medium of deferred payment — are merely subfunctions of money’s exchange function.
What is more, money is a good like any other. It is subject to the law of diminishing marginal utility. This, in turn, implies that an increase in the stock of money will necessarily be accompanied by a drop in money’s exchange value vis-à-vis other goods and services.
Against this backdrop it becomes obvious that a rise or fall of the money supply does not confer a social benefit: it merely lowers or raises the exchange value of the money unit. And a change in the money supply also implies redistributive effects; that is, a change in money stock is not, and can never be, neutral.
An injection of new money allows the first receiver to buy items at basically unchanged prices, while those receiving the new money later can buy only at higher prices. So, first receivers of new money benefit at the expense of later receivers (”Cantillon Effect”).
Further, an injection of new money necessarily causes a change in relative prices, and this, in turn, affects the production of consumption and investment goods. Any change in the money supply — be it free-market money or government-controlled money — will have the implication outlined above.
However, under a government-controlled money-supply regime, changes in the money supply are definitely harmful. Such a change in the money supply is in violation of the principles underlying the free market, which secure mutually beneficial exchange transactions.
As Austrian economists have pointed out, government money production, where money is created out of thin air by commercial banks extending circulation credit, leads to malinvestment, boom-and-bust cycles and a non-market-conforming distribution of incomes.
By no means less important, the economic and political ravages that monetary debacles cause open the door for ever-greater government interventions in the free-market system. These increasingly undermine and even destroy property rights, and so, liberty and freedom.
Finally, to remove all doubt, Mises showed that money cannot be neutral for logical reasons. According to a praxeological analysis, the axiom of human action represents an irrefutable truth; in fact, it is an a priori synthetic judgement in Kantian terms.
The law of diminishing marginal utility is logically implied in the axiom of human action — and thus irrefutably true. Money is an economic good, and it is subject to the law of diminishing marginal utility. And so a rise in the money supply must also necessarily lead to a decline in its purchasing power and must cause changes in other economic variables. A change in the money stock cannot be neutral for logical reasons.
Money and Real GDP in the United States
The superneutrality hypothesis, viewed from a mainstream economic viewpoint, suggests that output gains would be unrelated to changes in the money supply in the long run. And this is indeed what a look at the data suggests.
The charts on the left-hand (a) side show the relation between annual real-GDP-growth rates and annual money-growth rates in the United States for the period Q1, 1960, to Q2, 2009. The charts on the right-hand (b) side depict the relations between annual real-GDP growth and quarterly changes in annual money-supply-growth rates (a.k.a., acceleration rates of money growth).
Annual changes in M1 showed, on average, a slightly negative relation to real-GDP growth (as suggested by the basically negative slope of the regression line).[3] In the period under review, a 1 percentage point rise in annual M1 growth (from, say, 4% to 5%) came with a 0.3 percentage point drop in annual real-GDP growth. An acceleration of annual M1 growth (say, from 5% a year to 6% a year) did actually not, on average, have a bearing on real GDP growth.
The relation between annual growth of M2 and real-GDP growth shows a positive, however very small, relation. An increase in the annual M2-growth rate by 1 percentage point (again, say, 5% a year to 6% a year) came with a rise in the annual real-GDP of 0.11 percentage points, on average.
In fact, one may say that expanding M2 basically reflects part of the inflation of financial-asset prices — because M2 basically tracks commercial banks’ circulation credit expansion much better than M1. The relation between an acceleration of annual M2 growth and annual real-GDP growth was negative on average.
While one should certainly not get carried away by looking at these admittedly simple empirical illustrations — after all, it is praxeology that establishes the truth value of an economic theory logically — nevertheless, these illustrations reflect important lessons of Austrian monetary theory.
First, in the past the rise in the money supply was, on average, not accompanied by a rise in overall production; so the relentless rise in the money supply didn’t make society any richer.
Second, changes in the money stock were associated with, at times, considerable swings in output. However, as swings in output gains were, on average, more or less compensated for by swings in output losses (as implied by the first finding), this relation bears testimony to the Austrian’s conclusion that money-supply increases through circulation credit are the predominant cause of the business cycle.
Third, the continuing increase in the money stock (as reflected by positive growth rates of the money stock over time) lays bare the inflationary nature of the fiat money system; the inflation effects include debasing the currency and redistributing incomes in a non-market-conforming manner.
The Need for Demystifying
Mises was an advocate of free-market money. Such money would, Mises held, be fully compatible with the principles guiding the free social order and would minimize economically disturbing effects when compared to a government money-supply production (based on circulation credit).
Perhaps most important, Mises realised that free-market money was also a protection against the destruction of the free-market order by government intervention — which is regularly provoked by monetary debacles, themselves inevitably caused by government money-supply monopolies.
It is against this backdrop that the notions of neutrality and superneutrality of money need to be demystified. Admittedly, both hypotheses are supportive of the case against an openly visible inflationary monetary policy: they would acknowledge that more money does not bring more output.
However, the hypotheses of the neutrality and superneutrality of money rest on a simplified interpretation of the quantity theory. As a result, they come to ignore the inflation effects which inevitably follow from the government’s injecting new money into the system.
And as these inflation effects — and their economic and political consequences — are overlooked, one loses sight of the economically destructive role played by central banks: namely, increasing the money supply by creating circulation credit.
And finally, it needs to be noted that the hypothesis of the superneutrality of money is expressive of the empiricist-positivist approach of modelling economics according to the natural sciences. Mises noted,
The sciences of human action differ radically from the natural sciences. All authors eager to construct an epistemological system of the sciences of human action according to the pattern of the natural sciences err lamentably.[4]
Indeed, the method of natural sciences is inappropriate to the study of economics — which is a field of praxeology. The methodological spirit conveyed by the hypothesis of the superneutrality of money therefore promotes false theories — which, in turn, foster damaging policies.
[VIEW THIS ARTICLE ONLINE]
___________________________
Thorsten Polleit is Honorary Professor at the Frankfurt School of Finance & Management. Send him mail. See Thorsten Polleit’s article archives. Comment on the blog.
Notes
[1] For a reference on the discussion in mainstream monetary theory see, for instance, McCallum, B. T., “Long-Run Monetary Neutrality and Contemporary Policy Analysis,” Discussion Paper No. 2004-E-18, Institute For Monetary And Economic Studies, Bank of Japan; also Bullard, J. B and Keating, J., “The Long-run Relationship Between Inflation and Output in Postwar Economies,” Journal of Monetary Economics 36, no. 3 (December 1995): pp. 477–496.
[2] In this context see Mises, L. v., Human Action, 4th ed. (San Francisco: Fox & Wilkes, 1996), pp. 398–478.
[3] Note that M1 and MZM basically represent the means of payments, or those bank liabilities which can be converted into the means of payments rather easily. M2, in contrast, includes also longer-term bank liabilities (such as, for instance, time deposits), which are typically held for savings purposes.
[4] Human Action, p. 39.
Se tem uma coisa que dinheiro NAO eh eh “neutro”: nao existe pais negro rico, independente de sua riquesa natural.
Chaotic evolution defines the market economy
By John Kay
Published: November 3 2009 22:26 | Last updated: November 3 2009 22:26
The fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 was the defining economic event of our lifetime. It marked the end of the largest controlled experiment in the history of social sciences – the division of Germany into two economic zones, one centralised and planned, the other a market economy. After 40 years, the gap in living standards between the two was so extreme that the experiment terminated.
But why? A popular caricature of the market economy sees greed as the dominant human motivation. Economic progress is best achieved by acknowledging that reality and imposing as few restrictions as possible. This is the economy of Nigeria and Haiti, and it does not work. It is also the commercial environment of the Ik mountain people described by anthropologist Colin Turnbull, and Lehman Brothers as written up by former vice-president Lawrence McDonald. It did not work in these cases either.
John Kay, columist
A more thoughtful account of the success of markets has three elements. Prices act as signals – the price mechanism is a guide to resource allocation rather than central planning. Markets are a process of discovery – an economy adapts to change through a chaotic process of experimentation. The third element is the capacity of the market to bring about diffusion of political and economic power. This is the most effective way to protect society from rent-seeking – a culture in which the principal route to wealth is not creating wealth, but attaching oneself to wealth created by others.
Modern economics and economic policy put too much emphasis on the first of these elements. But the second and third are probably more important. The result is that both supporters and critics of the market economy confuse policies that are pro-business with policies that are pro-market. That confusion has undermined the social and political legitimacy of the market economy, and has led to serious policy errors.
Friedrich von Hayek is the most eloquent expositor of the market as a process of discovery. His argument was a priori, but vindicated by events. From the failures of the eastern bloc in the postwar era, we now have clearer evidence of how these planned economies failed in the development, not just of consumer products, but in business methods and in almost all areas of applied technology not related to military hardware.
Centralised systems experiment too little. They find reasons why new proposals will fail – and mostly they are right. But market economies thrive on a continued supply of unreasonable optimism. And when, occasionally, experiments succeed, they are quickly imitated.
If market economies are better at originating and diffusing new ideas, they are also better at disposing of failed ones. Honest feedback is not welcome in large bureaucracies, as the UK government’s drug advisers can testify. In authoritarian regimes, such reporting can be fatal to the person who delivers it.
Disruptive innovations most often come to market through new entrants. The health of the market economy depends on constant replenishment of ideas, often from unpredicted sources. If you had been planning the future of the computer industry in the 1970s, would you have asked Bill Gates and Paul Allen? If you had been planning the future of European aviation in the 1980s, would you have asked Michael O’Leary or Stelios Haji-Ioannou? If you had been planning the future of retailing in the 1990s would you have asked Jeff Bezos? Of course not: members of the politburo, cabinet or large company board would have consulted grey men in suits like themselves.
Markets are not a well-oiled machine: they are a constantly changing, adaptive biological system. Pluralism is their motive force, their essence chaotic, their development inherently uncertain. If we could predict the evolution of markets, we would not need markets in the first place. Next week, I will review the other part of the market story – barriers to rent-seeking.
This column is based on John Kay’s Wincott lecture
“Markets are not a well-oiled machine: they are a constantly changing, adaptive biological system. Pluralism is their motive force, their essence chaotic, their development inherently uncertain. If we could predict the evolution of markets, we would not need markets in the first place”
This is one bizarre statement. We can not predict the evolution of markets but we can measure their effect on people.
That is what is missing. Their effects are what we already know. The “market” no longer has anything to do with getting goods into people’s hands, it has to do with feeding a slum machine.
Endless discussion, or above my mind. Em todo caso, uma abordagem tangencial do problema com calma e paciência pode acrescentar um pouco de qualidade ao debate.
Abaixo um paper sobre o assunto.
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=phimp;cc=phimp;q1=dlps;rgn=publications;view=image;seq=00000001;idno=3521354.0009.008;didno=3521354.0009.008
Moral Community: Escaping the Ethical State of Nature
Author: Ebels-Duggan, Kyla
Publication Info: August 2009, vol. 9, no. 8
Abstract: I attempt to vindicate our authority to create new practical reasons for others by making choices of own own. In The Doctrine of Right Kant argues that we have an obligation to leave the Juridical State of Nature and found the state. In a less familiar passage in Religion within the Bounds of Mere Reason he argues for an obligation to leave what he calls the Ethical State of Nature and join together in the Moral Community. I read both texts as addressing and trying to resolve a tension between our individual freedom and our authority to make claims on one another. I explicate the political argument, and then develop the view that Kant sketches in the Religion, arguing that regarding others as capable of making choices that give you reasons to act is a condition of the full exercise of your autonomy.