Het is één van die dingen waar iedereen het over eens is: de Belgische staatsschuld moet omlaag.
Maar is dat wel zo? Ook Japan en de Verenigde Staten, niet bepaald ontwikkelingslanden, hebben een hoge schuldgraad.
Over het algemeen kunnen landen met weinig schulden moeilijk geld lenen omdat investeerders hen niet vertrouwen. Een permanent hoge staatsschuld is dan weer een teken van succes. Luxemburg is de uitzondering die de regel bevestigt.
Jammer genoeg stonden de reacties onder het filmpje weer vol met negatieve opmerkingen.
Banken doen nochtans hun best om het leven van hun klanten aangenamer te maken.
Paul Volcker zei ooit dat de geldautomaat het enige nuttige is wat banken de voorbije decennia uitgevonden hebben. Maar dat is wellicht omdat Volcker geen klant was bij een Belgische grootbank.
Betaal je je boodschappen met Payconiq? Log je in op overheidswebsites met itsme? Gebruik je Zoomit om je facturen af te handelen? Koop je je ticket voor bus of trein met je bank-app?
Het zijn allemaal oplossingen ontwikkeld door de banken.
Eulogy by Aya Sissoko, President of the ECB, 8 January 2076
It is with great sadness that we say farewell to our honorary President and dear friend Christine Lagarde today.
Madame Lagarde will be fondly remembered as the fourth President of the European Central Bank, the predecessor of the Euro Central Bank.
Christine became President during a protracted malaise in the euro area. By throwing off the yoke of false dogma, she revitalized the ECB. Her curiosity, vision and political prowess changed the course of history.
Under her leadership, the ECB showed the world how to handle the climate transition. At the same time, the euro economy grew at a rate previously believed to be impossible.
Ask any of the Seven Bankers, and they will all agree: Christine was the first modern central banker. Her autobiography, published 30 years ago, is still a must-read.
Christine’s career set the gold standard for our profession. Not just for what she did during her presidency, but also for what she didn’t do.
Her resignation in the wake of the Crisis of 2033 was a clear statement against the all-powerful central banker. During her retirement, Christine refrained from commenting on current events.
Christine, Madame Lagarde, you were born Lallouette – the lark – but you will always be The Owl of Frankfurt.
On behalf of the 1.4 billion people who use the euro every day,
Duurzaam beleggen zitindelift. Beleggers willen dat hun geld maatschappelijk verantwoord en ethisch geïnvesteerd wordt.
Maar ben je zeker dat je geld naar ‘propere’ bedrijven gaat?
In sommige duurzame fondsen zitten oliebedrijven, tabaksfabrikanten en belastingontduikers
Fondsenbeheerders verwijzen vaak naar de ESG (environmental, social and corporate governance) score om aan te duiden dat hun beleggingen verantwoord zijn. Helaas zijn er geen eenduidige regels om die score op te stellen.
In the thread below, Benjamin Braun explains Germany’s political economy. More specifically, he and Richard Deeg studied the interaction between the financial and non financial corporate (NFC) sectors.
‘German banks' supply of patient capital is the lifeblood of the German growth model’
The German NFC sector has high profits (1) and runs a trade surplus (2).
(1) enables companies to finance their own investments. They don’t need to borrow money from banks.
(2) leads to an inflow of reserves and deposits at banks. As a result, German banks lend to foreign entities.
This seems a sensible story.
However, I don’t agree with the conclusion:
The conventional policy wisdom is that Germany is overbanked. That may be true, but also German workers are underpaid. Policymakers who want to help German banks should focus on strengthening unions, raising wages, and on moving away from export-led growth. /END
First of all, I highly doubt any policymakers really want to help German banks. If that were the case, the monstrosity of publicly owned, unprofitable banks would have been cleaned up by now.
But even if German politicians cared, it’s not clear that stronger unions or higher wages would be more than a drop in a bucket.
A higher demand for credit would have an immediate positive impact on German banks. And there is a lot of room for growth.
Home ownership in Germany is low compared to non-German speaking countries, as you can see in this picture from Eurostat.
Stimulating home ownership would boost the demand for mortgages.
More investment by the government, as called for by industry and labor unions, would also increase the domestic supply of assets for banks if it’s funded by bonds instead of taxes.
If Angela Merkel wants some more advice, she can leave a comment 🙂
The interest rate on its savings account will be zero percent, which is less than the minimum of 0.11% at other banks.
Finally, there’s no indication that it will delight customers with superior services.
So NewB scores zero out of three.
Yet NewB’s business plan expects the bank to have 277 million euro in deposits by the end of 2024.
Some Chinese banks offer pork meat as a reward for opening an account. Maybe NewB should give an Impossible Burger to new customers? Otherwise, this is gonna turn into Mission: Impossible.
What do crypto enthousiasts have in common with defenders of independent central banks?
Based on the “Buy Bitcoin”-replies to ECB/Fed tweets, it seems the answer is “not much”.
However, that’s incorrect. Both groups think that their projects are apolitical.
Many central bankers view themselves as technocrats, divorced from politics.
But that’s a fantasy.
You see, anything a central bank does – even within its mandate – has political consequences.
Should monetary policy take into account climate change?
Should the central bank change interest rates or do QE to reach its inflation goal? Whatever option is chosen, monetary policy has distributional effects. For example, the German government has saved hundreds of billions in interest costs.
European non-financial corporations have benefited from low interest rates. Source
These two dilemmas illustrate that central banking is inherently political.
Therefore, economists should calculate the consequences of different monetary policy options. These scenarios will make the politics of the central bank’s actions explicit. For example, I estimated the effect of deeply negative interest rates (a proposal of Miles Kimball) on banks, governments, the ECB and the private sector.
Especially in the euro area, the ECB should take differences in asset mixes between countries into account.
Increased transparency will enable central bankers to defend monetary policy against criticism.
Update 26 January 2020: my arguments are obviously not new, see for example:
"Politics is built into central banking. […) Monetary policy choices may not be as politically divisive as war or welfare programmes, but they are too controversial ever to be purely technocratic." Heterox ideas 5 y ago, common view today. Great article also https://t.co/r3TkhkNlVu
