Der Dollar wird es wohl bleiben
Nachtrag zum Thema neue Welt-Finanzordnung. John Plender von der FINANCIAL TIMES (FT) diskutiert die Szenarien und kommt zu einem erfreulichen Fazit für den Dollar:
- „Safe assets, like reserve currencies and financial centres, have largely lost their pre-eminent status thanks to war. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine serves as a reminder that the definition of a safe asset will differ according to which geopolitical camp you side with in the strategic competition between the US and China.“ – bto: weshalb es auch wieder entsprechend diskutiert wird. Hier ist zu unterscheiden zwischen den Ländern, die direkt erleben, was mit ihren „sicheren Assets“ passieren kann (Russland), jenen, die Ähnliches befürchten (China, Indien, Saudi-Arabien) und den übrigen, die sich zumindest mit Blick auf die Inflation in den USA die Frage stellen, wie „sicher“ sicher ist.
- „To qualify as safe, an asset has to be highly liquid, backed by a solvent sovereign borrower — or incapable of default like gold — and reliably able to hold its value during a disaster. Yet geopolitics matters, which is why Japan, dependent on the US security guarantee, holds a higher percentage of reserves in US Treasuries than Russia does.“ – bto: Na gut, Russland hat sich auch bewusst vorbereitet.
- „In reality there is no such thing as a safe asset. The nearest the world has come to one was a British gilt-edged security during the gold standard era. Gilts in the 19th century enjoyed the backing of Palmerstonian gunboat diplomacy and Gladstonian fiscal orthodoxy. They appeared to offer a perfect, and perfectly liquid, store of value. But then in the 20th century Britain abandoned the gold standard, demonstrating that super-safety in gilts was illusory.“ – bto: Es war aber eine sichtbare Zeitenwende, in der zusätzlich eine bessere Alternative auf den Markt kam.
- „Reserve currency competition is a relative matter. It is all about what constitutes the least unsafe asset. Despite being described as the quintessential safe asset, US Treasuries were a rotten store of value in the twin oil crises of the 1970s, offering negative real income. They will show similarly poor returns in today’s inflationary world.“ – bto: Aber wie William White im Gespräch mit mir sagte, da es alle gleich machen, haben wir den gewünschten Effekt: Es gibt keine Fluchtmöglichkeit.
- „Paul Volcker (…) restored some safety to Treasuries through a draconian monetary policy. The resulting bond bull market was further helped by a shortage of safe assets. This arose because the growth of advanced economies that produce safe assets has been slower than the global growth rate, which has been driven disproportionately by high-saving emerging market economies such as China.“ – bto: Das ist eine interessante, alternative Interpretation der Sparschwemme (siehe Dienstag).
- „Before the financial crisis, these global creditors also invested in supposedly safe private assets, namely triple-A rated mortgage-backed securities. Their claim to safety was blown in the credit crunch of 2007. The pool of safe assets then shrank further in the eurozone debt crisis when markets woke up to the lack of safety in Italian and Greek government paper. The central banks added to the shrinkage through their asset-purchasing programmes.“ – bto: Daraus schließen dann Ökonomen, die Staaten müssten endlich mehr Schulden machen, damit es mehr Safe Assets gibt! Dabei verkennend, dass die Qualität dieser Schulden immer schlechter wird.
- „Meanwhile, the recent dysfunctionality of US politics has contributed to the waning of Treasuries’ haven qualities. Yet the dollar remains the pre-eminent global reserve currency with a 59 per cent share, whereas the Chinese renminbi has less than 3 per cent. China aspires to a bigger reserve currency role. Geopolitics will now help that aspiration. But its currency is not convertible, its government bond market is illiquid, it has a weak legal framework and its markets are hostage to the whims of the Communist party leadership.“ – bto: wobei Barry Eichengreen im Gespräch mit mir sehr schön ausgeführt hat, dass es einer stabilen politischen Lage bedarf, wenig Polarisierung, und genau das in den USA immer mehr fehlt.
- „A more pressing threat to the dollar may be that to meet future renewed demand for safe assets, the US government will have to run yet more budget deficits and to do so from a very high level of indebtedness. This could lead to worries about creditworthiness — similar to the early 1970s fiscal bind that caused Richard Nixon, then president, to break the dollar’s link with gold — a de facto sovereign default.“ – bto: Nur gibt es diesmal nicht die Möglichkeit, vom Gold abzugehen. Das gab es schon mal.
- „(…) US Treasuries will retain their ‘east unsafe’ cachet for quite a while yet.“ – bto: Ich denke, wir sind in einer Zeitenwende und der Dollar kann seinen Status nur verteidigen, wenn die Politik der USA sich ändert. Europa spielt in dem Zusammenhang ohnehin nur die Rolle des Spielballs.
