segue testo inglese e traduzione in italiano
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PAUL JAY: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Paul Jay in Washington.
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In part one of our interview with John Weeks (and you’ll find it right below here in our
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episode), we discuss Fareed Zakaria’s show of Sunday, where he talked about Germany making
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reasonable demands on Greece, requiring reforms and fiscal consolidation and such. And that’s
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the path to growth, Zakaria said. But it was kind of ironic. In the very next segment of
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Zakaria’s show, he interviews Prime Minister Mario Monti, and Monti more or less says,
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well, we’re doing everything we’re being asked and there’s no growth. Here’s a segment of
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that part of the show.
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FAREED ZAKARIA: When you talk about the need for a growth agenda in Europe, are you saying
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that the austerity programs really haven’t worked? If you look at a country like Ireland,
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which has done everything it was asked to do, or many of the things, in terms of fiscal
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consolidation, cutting spending, raising taxes, it has not produced growth. It has not even
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produced much investor confidence. Italy’s budget deficit is up, its debt-to-GDP ratio
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is up, largely because growth has collapsed. Should these austerity measures end?
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MARIO MONTI: First of all, I don’t like to speak about austerity. I prefer to speak of
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fiscal discipline. Fiscal discipline, in the end, amounts to austerity if it is not accompanied
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by other policies. Fiscal discipline, in my view, is there to stay. Italy has done huge
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efforts towards fiscal discipline, and it is now the country in the European Union which
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will achieve a structural balanced budget before all the others next year–actually,
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a slight structural surplus. And yet growth is not coming.
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ZAKARIA: How does that happen? So you in Italy, as you say, you have done more fiscal consolidation
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than any country. You’ve done structural reforms as well. Now, how do you get that demand going?
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MONTI: Exactly.
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ZAKARIA: You need somebody to buy your products. Are you saying you want Germany to buy things
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from you?
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MONTI: Well, we are gaining a better position in terms of competitiveness because of the
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structural reforms. We’re actually destroying domestic demand through fiscal consolidation.
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Hence, there has to be a demand operation through Europe, a demand expansion.
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As you pointed out most clearly, we, for example, in Italy are having problems because we have
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achieved very good fiscal results–but will they really be sustainable in the longer term
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unless the dominator, GDP, increases through growth?
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JAY: Now joining us again to discuss all of this is John Weeks. John is a professor emeritus
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at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies. He’s the author of the
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book Capital, Exploitation and Economic Crisis. He’s also the founder of JWeeks.org. And he
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joins us again from London. Thanks, John.
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JOHN WEEKS: Well, thank you for having me again.
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JAY: So Zakaria and Monti now seem a bit in a quandry. They–what they both had advocated,
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and certainly what the financial elite of Europe advocates, Italy says it’s doing, and
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there’s no growth. What do you make of that?
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WEEKS: Well, as I said in the other interview, this is all a complete misrepresentation of
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what’s going on and using terms that obfuscate and mislead people. And so, for example, fiscal
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consolidation, fiscal discipline, these words cover–what they mean is cuts, cutting things
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that affect people’s day-to-date life. So what Monti is saying is, we’ve achieved fiscal
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discipline. Sounds good, doesn’t it? It sounds like now we’re–we were undisciplined before;
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now we’re disciplined. Rubbish. Italy was not undisciplined in fiscal terms. If you
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look at the numbers, Italy ran an expenditure surplus throughout the 2000s, up until the
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great crisis of 2008. Yes, a surplus.
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Where their deficit came from was interest being paid on the national debt. And the reason
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the national debt was so large was because in the 1990s, the Italian government borrowed
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to maintain the lira par with the German currency in order to enter the euro. I mean, if ever
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there was a case of being careful of what you want because you might get it, this is
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it. So the larger debt that everybody attacks Italy about, where did it come from? It came
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from borrowing to maintain the currency into the euro. Alright.
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There was no need for fiscal consolidation, because actually interest rates for Italy
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are much lower now than they were in the 1990s. This is a–in the case of Greece, there was
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a genuine fiscal problem which could have been easily solved. But in Italy’s case, there
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is no fiscal problem. You know, Berlusconi in his final days as prime minister was interviewed,
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and in that interview he said, crisis? There is no fiscal crisis in Italy. Berlusconi,
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a congenital liar, for once in his life told the truth. There was no fiscal problem in
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Italy. This is a pure speculative phenomenon. And the Italian government, the Italian elite,
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is taking advantage of it through Monti to remove those protections of workers and small
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businesses in order to facilitate the development of big business in Italy, particularly in
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the retail area.
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JAY: And then Monti in a sense acknowledges the effect of this, because he says to Zakaria,
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well, we did all this, and now we destroy domestic demand. I mean, so what do they think?
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How is there going to be growth after you destroy domestic demand? So, you know, they’re
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not offering solutions on either side.
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WEEKS: It’s true. I want to say one more comment about–I read the text of Monti’s response.
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At one point, Zakaria–doesn’t attack–says, you know, democracies don’t seem to be very
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good at solving these problems; that’s why they had to put you into a government in Italy,
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a nonelected government. I mean, it is remarkable if you think about it. We have two nonelected
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governments in Europe, in Italy and in Greece, imposed from external pressure. I mean, that
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is extraordinary, isn’t it, in the 21st century.
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JAY: Yeah, it’s also kind of ironic. Zakaria’s worried about German voter taxpayers in a
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democracy bailing out Greece, but he’s not very worried about any democracy in Italy
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or Greece.
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WEEKS: [incompr.] and so Monti says, democracies aren’t very good at doing this, because voters
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have a short-term viewpoint and can’t see the long term. Democracies are not very good
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at doing it, because it is a policy of the 99 percent. It is very hard to get a majority
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of people to come out in favor of the policies that help the 1 percent and harm the 99 percent.
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So, yes, democracies don’t do very well at imposing austerity, for the most part.
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So how do you get out of this? We’ve known for a long time how to got out of it: indeed,
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a fiscal expansion. Now, let me say it will not be quite that simple in Europe, because
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the German government has been quite successful–German governments, I should say, plural–been quite
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successful in creating a cost gap between German products and the products of the other
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European countries. This was primarily by methods that I discussed in a previous interview.
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Okay. Somehow you have to close that gap and get back to a situation in which trade is
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more balanced among those countries. So first you stimulate demand so that there is more
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demand within each country.
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But then you need to do something such that you have a demand stimulus in Italy and the
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result of it isn’t, say, for half the demand stimulus to go on the importation of products
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from Germany. And I think what needs to happen there is there need to be–for the countries
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with trade deficits with Germany there need to be temporary export subsidies, just as
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Germany had export subsidies. So if you combine a fiscal stimulus [incompr.] general increase
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in demand and something to narrow the cost differentials, you would have recovery. But
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it’s not going to happen. That is not going to happen.
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JAY: But the other part of this, too, does there not also have to be something because
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part of this destruction of domestic demand is, you know, the lowering of pensions, and
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most importantly the lowering and undermining of wages, that if this is going to be sustainable,
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there has to be some kind of policies that lead towards higher wages? Is that not part
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of this?
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WEEKS: A number of people, German economists too, have said we need a policy in which growth
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is tied to increases in money wages. And the increases in real wages are tied to increase
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in productivity. This was in fact the practice in the 1950s and the 1960s. I mean, that’s
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what European governments sought to achieve through various mechanisms, pacts between–tripartite
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pacts with government, labor, and business, in which you–the rising–the incomes of workers
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and a majority of the population moved in step with productivity and with growth. We
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need to return to something like that. I don’t see it happening, but that is the only way
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there will be sustained growth at at least a moderate pace in the major economies, and,
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by implication, at the global level.
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JAY: Now, twice you’ve said, I don’t see that happening. So what do you see happening?
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WEEKS: Well, when you interviewed me (I don’t know if you recall it) in October of last
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year, I said there was going to–very likely to be another major financial crisis, and
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it would probably be the coming year, that is, in 2012, and that it would be around the
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euro. You didn’t have to be Nostradamus to make that prediction, let me say.
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[incompr.] what will happen? People argue, well, you know, should Greece drop out? Should
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Greece default? What will–you know, with the–wouldn’t it be mad to default? Things
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are out of control. Greece is going to default. This is–if I can take a phrase from Gabriel
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García Márquez, this is a chronicle of an exit foretold. Sometime next month, Greece
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will default. There will be an election. If the left is elected, then you’ll have a controlled
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default. To a certain extent it will be controlled. At least there will be an attempt to manage
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it. If the leaders of the other European countries are successful in frightening Greek population
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into reelecting the same clowns and thieves that got Greece into this austerity mess,
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then also there will be default and exit, but it will be chaotic, because what’s happening–as
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you’ve said, what’s happening in Greece is the result of the austerity. Austerity prevents
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the government from having the revenue to service the debt. Without growth, there is
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no conceivable outcome other than default.
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JAY: And then what?
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WEEKS: Well, I think that’s [incompr.] ability to predict, but I would say that it’s conceivable
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Greece could default and stay in the euro. And that would involve more of the same misery,
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only even worse. More likely, I think, is that they’ll default and be abandoned. I think
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that in Germany and in the European Commission, leaders are already planning for Greece to
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exit. I think they take the position that, you know, the Greeks have been a problem for
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too long, they can’t solve the problem on Germany’s terms, so if they default, then
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just push them out.
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Then what happens to the euro? Many people say it will break up. I would say that depends
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on what the other weak countries do, ‘cause, see, Germany is one of the strongest economies
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in the world, so it’s inconceivable that you can have a collapse of a currency which is
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being used by one of the strongest countries in the world and a country which is growing–not
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very fast, and on the basis of beggar-thy-neighbor policies, but still it’s growing. So I don’t
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think they will enter a period of very extreme financial instability. Banks will go bust,
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particularly in Spain. Perhaps some of the viewers have been reading or seeing reports
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about the banks in Spain. It’s almost certain that they’ll need to be bailed out again.
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Then what will happen? Will the Germans say, well, Spain has become too much of a problem
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too? It will be a very chaotic situation. How chaotic and how it will be resolved I
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don’t know. We’ll really be in, you know, uncharted territory, if I can use a cliche.
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JAY: Thanks for joining us, John.
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WEEKS: Well, thank you for having me.
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JAY: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
***
riforme strutturali.
Cimit€URO
Eureka!_FUSION_2014
News-Fusione_Fredda
9 DIC 2013 – info
Conferenza Euro 13-10-2013
Convegno "OLTRE L'EURO"
Premio_Eureka!_2014
Fisica/Matematica/Teorie
UNIVERSI_ADIACENTI
UNIVERSI_ADIACENTI_Vol.1
FUEL_CELL_T
Elenco Titoli
Omega_GO_TO_search
Eventi/Attualità
M5S Ruocco No-€uro
Manifestazione 7-9-2013 Roma Piazza SS Apostoli
NWO
Psicologia ANIxD
Comitato Italiano Popolo Sovrano
Rete Mov 99%
Vaccini DL 7-6-2017, n. 73
6 VIOLA 