QUEM SÓ TEM UM MARTELO VÊ TODOS OS PROBLEMAS COMO PREGOS: O alívio quantitativo aliviará? (58) Unintended consequences (XVIII)

Outras marteladas.

Em linha com os posts anteriores sublinhando as prováveis consequências indesejadas de um longo período de alívio quantitativo e de taxas de juro nulas ou negativas que tem alimentado um oceano de liquidez, cito agora alguns excertos de um interessante artigo de Pascal Blanque e Amin Rajan publicado há dias no FT.

«The world economy is recovering but it is still panic stations for central banks. For them, global debt is like the sword of Damocles — an ever-present danger.

It stands at about 330 per cent of annual economic output, up from 225 per cent in 2008, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

After the 2008-09 financial crisis, the hope was that a combination of economic recovery, inflation and austerity would shrink the debt mountain. This, though, was too optimistic. Growth has been below par, inflation subdued and austerity self-defeating. (...) 

No one knows all the cracks into which excess liquidity has seeped — or what risks are being stored up.

Debt means consumption brought forward while low rates mean the survival of zombie borrowers and companies. They face liquidity risks as credit matures. Additionally, investors’ capacity to absorb higher rates is a key concern. (...)

In any event, spiralling global debt appears to be so out of control that the world will struggle to pay off the interest, let alone make a material dent in its size.

The global economy is vulnerable to the butterfly effect, the part of chaos theory that says small changes can lead to big outcomes. Rates will have to remain lower for longer, forcing investors seeking decent returns to move ever higher on the risk curve.

High debt is not intrinsically bad so long as it is used to fund investments that deliver profits or create financial assets worth more than the debt. Data on this score are hard to come by.

One thing is clear, though. The origins of the current worries predate the 2008 crisis which was caused when lending standards went from responsible to reckless: the siphoning of money into dodgy ventures such as subprime mortgages, covenant-light loans or sovereign lending based on creative accounting.

Ironically, all this happened in the two decades often described as the age of “great moderation”. The sins of the past may well take just as long to redeem.»