Der Marsch in die Dauer­rettung

Pointierte Kritik am Modus der Dauerrettung in der FINANCIAL TIMES (FT):

• „As bank runs spread, it has become clear that anyone who questions a government rescue for those caught underfoot will be tarred as a latter-day liquidationist, like those who advised Herbert Hoover to let businesses fail after the crash of 1929.“ – bto: Gemeint ist, dass man, wenn man die Pleite nicht verhindert, gewillt ist, einen Kollaps zuzulassen, der in eine neue große Depression führt. Schon ziemlich harte Geschütze…
• „(…)  it’s no longer politically possible for governments not to stage rescues, but this is a snowballing problem of their own making. The past few decades of easy money created markets so large — nearing five times larger than the world economy — and so intertwined, that the failure of even a midsize bank risks global contagion.“ – bto: Weil die Banken das auch wissen, gibt es wenig Anreiz, vorsichtig zu agieren – was die Probleme vergrößert.
• „More than low interest rates, the easy money era was shaped by an increasingly automatic state reflex to rescue — to rescue the economy from disappointing growth even during recoveries, to rescue not only banks and other companies but also households, industries, financial markets and foreign governments in times of crisis.“ – bto: Einen wahren Boost bekam das Ganze durch Corona und die dortigen staatlichen Interventionen.
• „(…) the rescue reflex is still gaining strength. The stronger it grows, the less dynamic capitalism becomes. In stark contrast to the minimalist state of the pre-1929 era, America now leads a rescue culture that keeps growing to new maximalist extremes.“ – bto: Wobei ich immer noch die EU an der Spitze der sozialistischen Entwicklung sehen würde.
• „The ethos of contemporary European central banks was to help solvent banks with solid collateral — in practice they were tougher, protecting their own reserves and ‘turning away their correspondents in need’, as a Fed history puts it.“ – bto: Das war die Bagehot Doktrin.
• „A restrained government was a key feature of the industrial revolution, marked by painful downturns and robust recoveries, resulting in strong productivity and higher per capita income growth.“ – bto: … weil es keine Zombies gab.
• „(The rescues in the 1990s) pale next to 2008 and 2020, when the Fed and Treasury smashed records for trillions of dollars created or extended in loans and bailouts to thousands of companies across finance and other industries at home and abroad. In each crisis, rescues held down the corporate default rate to levels that were unexpectedly low, compared with past patterns. They are doing the same now even as rates rise and bank runs begin.“ – bto: Sie befördern die Zombifizierung, die Wohlstand kostet – vor allem die Produktivitätsfortschritte dämpft.
• „The rescues have led to a massive misallocation of capital and a surge in the number of zombie firms, which contribute mightily to weakening business dynamism and productivity. In the US, total factor productivity growth fell to just 0.5 per cent after 2008, down from about 2 per cent between 1870 and the early 1970s.“ – bto: Und damit wird das Problem des schwachen Wachstums immer größer.
• „Instead of re-energising the economy, the maximalist rescue culture is bloating and thereby destabilising the global financial system. As fragility grows, each new rescue hardens the case for the next one.“ – bto: So ist es. Doch was soll man stattdessen machen?

Fazit: „(…) constant rescues undermine capitalism. Government intervention eases the pain of crises but over time lowers productivity, economic growth and living standards.“ – bto: Bingo.