DAS VERSCHOBENE KOORDINATENSYSTEM DES EURO

FURCHE-Kolumne 329     Wilfried Stadler

So schnell kann es gehen. Vor gut drei Monaten erst hatte die Europäische Zentralbank (EZB) eine umfassende Erklärung zu ihrer erstmals seit 2003 offiziell überarbeiteten geldpolitischen Strategie veröffentlicht und versprochen, diese regelmäßig auf den Prüfstand zu stellen. Eine nächste Bewertung sei 2025 zu erwarten, hieß es.

Nun aber wurde diese Strategie bereits innerhalb weniger Wochen durch die rasante Entwicklung der Inflation von der Realität überholt. Mit über 3,5 Prozent überschreitet die Geldentwertung im Euroraum den einvernehmlichen Zielwert von 2 Prozent um beinahe das Doppelte. Und auch wenn die Rohstoff-Preissprünge nach überstandener Covid-Krise vorübergehender Natur sein mögen, erzeugen doch die steigenden Preisniveaus eine Erwartungsspirale, die auch auf das Lohngefüge einwirkt. Überdies dräuen am Horizont gefährliche Wolken einer mit ansteigender Inflation gekoppelten Konjunkturschwäche („Stagflation“), die von Problemen in den Zuliefer-Ketten von Computer-Chips und anderen wichtigen Vorprodukten ausgelöst wird.

The Possibility of Polexit

Date: 19‑10‑2021

Source: Project Syndicate by Slawomir Sierakowski

Slawomir Sierakowski, founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement, is Director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Warsaw and Senior Fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.

 By manufacturing a constitutional court ruling that effectively rejects the legal basis of EU membership, Poland’s ruling Law and Justice party may have finally bitten off more than it can chew. Sadly, whatever happens next, all Poles are likely to bear the costs of the government’s brinkmanship.

WARSAW – After the Soviet Union collapsed, Poland’s greatest dream was to join the European Union and NATO. Scarred by Nazism and then communism, Poles longed for a fresh start, and membership in NATO and the EU became a goal that transcended politics.

EU membership was considered so important that Polish liberals pointedly refrained from taking up divisive issues concerning Polish history or the Catholic Church. Even Pope John Paul II (a Pole) got involved, pushing the slogan “from the Union of Lublin to the European Union,” in reference to the 1569 pact that finalized the unification of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (under which today’s Poland, Belarus, and Ukraine comprised a single, democratically governed state). In 2003, more than three‑quarters of Poles voted in favor of EU membership.

: The gap between reckless Brexit promises and reality will soon be too big to ignore

Date: 18‑10‑2021

Source: The Guardian John Harris

Voters invested hope in the idea of leaving the EU.

But a few years of queues and chaos could further erode public trust

What must it be like to be in the inner circles of this government, watching the economy bounce from crisis to crisis? Shortages mount, while livestock that suddenly cannot be put into the food chain is slaughtered and sent to rendering plants. Ships are diverted from UK ports because no drivers can be found to transport their cargo once it is offloaded. In response to ministers’ threats to suspend the trading arrangements for Northern Ireland – that we are now told the government never believed in to start with – there is reportedly pressure within the EU to begin preparations for a trade war.

The prime minister goes off to Marbella, where he pretends to paint pictures; the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, is said to be pinning his hopes for an easing of the current energy crisis on a “wet, windy and mild” winter. Yet the Conservative party is still ahead in the polls, apparently shored up by the weakness of the Labour party and the clear, optimistic narrative that Boris Johnson has so far managed to project on to events. And I wonder: in cabinet meetings and ministerial get‑togethers, do they laugh at the apparent absurdity of it all, or anxiously exchange estimates of when the roof might finally start to fall in?

China’s Risky Business Crackdown

Date: 30‑09‑2021

Source: Project Syndicate by Raghuram G. Rajan

Raghuram G. Rajan, former governor of the Reserve Bank of India, is Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and the author, most recently, of The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind. 

Like the earlier campaign against corruption, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s effort to control China’s private sector is agreeable in its stated intentions, but questionable in its implementation. Quite possibly, the campaign for „common prosperity“ will undermine the economic sectors that China needs to reorient its growth model.

CHICAGO – Is there a larger purpose to the Chinese government’s recent actions against the country’s largest corporations, and does its cleanup of the financial sector fit into its economic strategy?

China has sought for at least 15 years to rebalance its growth from exports and fixed‑asset investment to greater domestic consumption – efforts that have assumed a new urgency, owing to conflicts with the United States and other countries. As long as its domestic market expands, China will be able to reduce the strategic vulnerabilities its dependence on exports implies, and foreign firms will become more dependent on the Chinese market, giving China new sources of strategic leverage. But there are serious impediments to this strategy.

Greening Next‑Generation Europe

Date: 30‑09‑2021

Source: Project Syndicate by Connie Hedegaard

Connie Hedegaard served as European Commissioner for Climate Action (2010‑14), and as Denmark’s Minister for the Environment (2004‑07) and Minister for Climate and Energy (2007‑09).

    European political and business leaders have signaled clearly that they understand the urgent need for decarbonization, and have set their boldest and most ambitious targets yet. But the region’s young generation has never been more impatient to see lofty rhetoric and noble intentions translated into real and visible action.

BRUSSELS – The COVID‑19 crisis could have killed the climate cause. Instead, the pandemic has reinvigorated it – not least in Europe. Never before have so many of the region’s economy and finance ministers and business leaders realized that decarbonization and the green transition can actually drive, rather than hinder, job creation, infrastructure investment, and industrial innovation. As Europe gears up for a post‑pandemic economic recovery, decarbonization is not only essential, but also presents genuine opportunities if we get it right.

Education Must Come First

Date: 30‑09‑2021

Source: Project Syndicate by Yasmine Sherif

Yasmine Sherif is Director of Education Cannot Wait. 

Disruptions to education resulting from COVID‑19, violent conflict, and climate change are leaving crisis‑affected girls and boys ever‑further behind. It is hard to imagine a better investment than keeping these children in school.

NEW YORK – COVID‑19 is pushing the world to the brink. The pandemic has killed more than 4.7 million people, caused global GDP to decline by 4.6% in 2020, and pushed 119‑124 million more people into extreme poverty. Today, nearly one in three people globally do not have enough food to eat, while conflicts and climate‑change‑induced natural disasters are forcing families from their homes. And the resulting school disruptions are leaving crisis‑affected children ever‑further behind.

When world leaders launched Education Cannot Wait, the United Nations’ global fund for education in emergencies and protracted crises, at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit, 75 million children and youth globally were being denied their right to an education as a result of conflict, displacement, and natural disaster.

DIE STUNDE DER STEUERPOLITIK

Furche, Wilfried Stadler

„Erst beim Abfassen der Steuererklärung kommt man drauf, wie viel Geld man sparen würde, wenn man gar keines hätte“. Diese Einsicht verdankt die Menschheit dem 1971 verstorbenen französischen Schauspieler und Komiker Fernandel, der es in der Rolle des Dorfpfarrers Don Camillo zu Weltruhm brachte. Er beschreibt damit nicht nur ein Luxusproblem hochversteuerter Mitmenschen, sondern im Umkehrschluss gleich auch die zeitlose Tatsache, dass Steuersenkungen zuallererst jene begünstigen, die davor mehr zu bezahlen hatten.

Die von der Bundesregierung bereits im vergangenen Jahr umgesetzte Senkung des Eingangssteuersatzes von 25 auf 20 Prozent belegt dies ebenso wie Vorausberechnungen zur kommenden Etappe der Steuerreform, welche eine Senkung der beiden nächsten Tarifstufen der Lohnsteuer von 35 auf 30 Prozent und von 42 auf 40 Prozent vorsieht. Wer das Glas halbvoll sieht, darf sich darüber freuen, dass damit eine in Summe doch deutliche Entlastung der unteren und mittleren Lohneinkommen außer Streit steht. Wer sich hingegen daran stößt, dass mit dem Flacherwerden der Tarifstufen auch Vorteile für Besserverdienende verbunden sind, muss wohl mit dem Einwand leben, er/sie hätte die innere Logik des Fernandel´schen Paradoxons noch nicht ganz verstanden.

‘Green growth’ doesn’t exist – less of everything is the only way to avert catastrophe

Date: 29‑09‑2021

Source: The Guardian by George Monbiot

It is simply not possible to carry on at the current level of economic activity without destroying the environment

‘Combined impacts are laying waste to entire living systems.’ A dead North Atlantic right whale washed up on a beach in New Brunswick, Canada.

There is a box labelled “climate”, in which politicians discuss the climate crisis. There is a

box named “biodiversity”, in which they discuss the biodiversity crisis. There are other boxes, such as pollution, deforestation, overfishing and soil loss, gathering dust in our planet’s lost property department. But they all contain aspects of one crisis that we have divided up to make it comprehensible. The categories the human brain creates to make sense of its surroundings are not, as Immanuel Kant observed, the “thing‑in‑itself”. They describe artefacts of our perceptions rather than the world.

A Post‑Merkel Post‑Mortem

Date: 29‑09‑2021

Source: Project Syndicate by Hans‑Werner Sinn

Hans‑Werner Sinn, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the University of Munich, is a former president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research and serves on the German economy ministry’s Advisory Council. He is the author, most recently, of The Euro Trap: On Bursting Bubbles, Budgets, and Beliefs. 

However one regards the outgoing German chancellor’s 16 years in office, her departure marks the end of a political era. But, ultimately, rather than trying to steer events and public opinion, she too often allowed herself to be carried by them.

MUNICH – After 16 years in office, Angela Merkel is stepping aside as Germany’s chancellor. While other countries’ presidents and prime ministers have come and gone, Merkel has remained in power for four electoral terms, generally enjoying high public‑approval ratings. But with her Christian Democratic Union (CDU) potentially heading into opposition following Germany’s September 26 federal election, how should we evaluate her long reign?

As the daughter of a Protestant clergyman who had relocated from West Germany to communist East Germany out of personal conviction, Merkel enjoyed privileges there. She was allowed to attend university in East Germany, participated in exchange visits to Moscow, and belonged to her country’s communist youth elite (FDJ) until the age of 35, when the Berlin Wall came down. When the West German CDU established itself in Germany’s new eastern states ahead of the 1990 federal election, then‑Chancellor Helmut Kohl recruited the canny young politician to the party. Merkel almost immediately rose to high office, and eventually became party leader. Following the 2005 election, she replaced Gerhard Schröder as chancellor.

The UK’s petrol crisis is just a taste of a more jittery, uncertain future

Date: 28‑09‑2021

Source: The Guardian by Gaby Hinsliff

The shortage of tanker drivers has sparked a run on the pumps – and the only question now is what we’ll run out of next

Queues for petrol in Chingford, London.

On Saturday, a friend who spends most weekends trekking halfway across the country to check up on her increasingly frail parents spent an anxious morning scouring empty garages for petrol. She can’t have been alone.

The strains of a weekend’s stockpiling are starting to show: some teachers can’t fill up to get to school, nurses are reduced to cadging lifts to hospital, and care workers who rely on their cars to reach vulnerable people in isolated areas are struggling. And then there are the purely human dilemmas. Imagine being heavily pregnant, bag all packed for the labour ward, and the fuel light is flashing.