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Nouriel Roubini: Die Depression der 2020er-Jahre

Nouriel Roubini, bekannt als Prophet der Finanzkrise, fasst in einem Beitrag für die Non-Profit-Organisation Project Syndicate zusammen, was auf uns zukommt. Seine zehn Thesen passen gut zu meinen Überlegungen im neuen Buch. Die Highlights:

  • “(…) even if the Greater Recession leads to a lackluster U-shaped recovery this year, an L-shaped ‘Greater Depression’ will follow later in this decade, owing to ten ominous and risky trends.” – bto: Da sage noch einer, ich wäre pessimistisch!
  • “The first trend concerns deficits and their corollary risks: debts and defaults. (…) a massive increase in fiscal deficits – on the order of 10% of GDP or more – at a time when public debt levels in many countries were already high, if not unsustainable. (…) the loss of income for many households and firms means that private-sector debt levels will become unsustainable, too, potentially leading to mass defaults and bankruptcies.” – bto: Ich denke, es wird alles monetarisiert werden.
  • “A second factor is the demographic time bomb in advanced economies. The COVID-19 crisis shows that much more public spending must be allocated to health systems (…) because most developed countries have aging societies, funding such outlays in the future will make the implicit debts from today’s unfunded health-care and social-security systems even larger.” – bto: So ist es! Wir hatten schon so massiv unterfinanzierte Systeme. Dies wird nun noch größer. So viel kann man gar nicht besteuern …
  • “A third issue is the growing risk of deflation. In addition to causing a deep recession, the crisis is also creating a massive slack in goods (unused machines and capacity) and labor markets (mass unemployment), as well as driving a price collapse in commodities such as oil and industrial metals. That makes debt deflation likely, increasing the risk of insolvency.” – bto: Natürlich – Irving Fisher hätte seine wahre Freude.
  • “A fourth (related) factor will be currency debasement. As central banks try to fight deflation and head off the risk of surging interest rates (following from the massive debt build-up), monetary policies will become even more unconventional and far-reaching. In the short run, governments will need to run monetized fiscal deficits to avoid depression and deflation. Yet, over time, the permanent negative supply shocks from accelerated de-globalization and renewed protectionism will make stagflation all but inevitable.” – bto: bei uns noch verstärkt durch die Art der Krisenbekämpfung, die auf mehr Staat setzt und den absehbaren Fokus auf den Kampf gegen den Klimawandel, der mehr den Charakter von Konsum hat und nicht die Produktivität stärkt.
  • “(…) the income and wealth gaps of the twenty-first-century economy will widen further. To guard against future supply-chain shocks, companies in advanced economies will re-shore production from low-cost regions to higher-cost domestic markets. But rather than helping workers at home, this trend will accelerate the pace of automation, putting downward pressure on wages and further fanning the flames of populism, nationalism, and xenophobia.” – bto: Ich denke, wir werden steigende Löhne erleben, vor allem in den nicht-handelbaren Bereichen.
  • “This points to the sixth major factor: de-globalization. The pandemic is accelerating trends toward balkanization and fragmentation that were already well underway. (…) The post-pandemic world will be marked by tighter restrictions on the movement of goods, services, capital, labor, technology, data, and information.” – bto: Auch das dürfte stimmen, die Wertschöpfungsketten werden zerfallen.
  • “The backlash against democracy will reinforce this trend. Populist leaders often benefit from economic weakness, mass unemployment, and rising inequality. (…) more susceptible to populist rhetoric, particularly proposals to restrict migration and trade.” – bto: Ich nehme an, bei uns wird sich der linke Trend beschleunigt fortsetzen – im Unterschied zu anderen Ländern, wo vermutlich eher rechte Politik dominieren wird.
  • “This points to an eighth factor: the geostrategic standoff between the US and China. With the Trump administration making every effort to blame China for the pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime will double down on its claim that the US is conspiring to prevent China’s peaceful rise. The Sino-American decoupling in trade, technology, investment, data, and monetary arrangements will intensify.” – bto: Das kann letztlich nur zu verstärkten Konflikten und höheren Kosten führen und beides ist schlecht für das Wirtschaftswachstum.
  • “(…) because technology is the key weapon in the fight for control of the industries of the future and in combating pandemics, the US private tech sector will become increasingly integrated into the national-security-industrial complex.” – bto: Aber was bedeutet das für die Innovationsfähigkeit?
  • “A final risk that cannot be ignored is environmental disruption (…) Recurring epidemics are, like climate change, essentially man-made disasters, born of poor health and sanitary standards, the abuse of natural systems, and the growing interconnectivity of a globalized world. Pandemics and the many morbid symptoms of climate change will become more frequent, severe, and costly in the years ahead.” – bto: Na ja, Pandemien gab es immer und dürften nur insofern “man-made“ sein wie die Menschen voraussetzen.
  • “These ten risks, already looming large before COVID-19 struck, now threaten to fuel a perfect storm that sweeps the entire global economy into a decade of despair. (…) the coming Greater Depression.” – bto: Das ist nicht gerade ein optimistischer Ausblick. Ich finde die Thesen (bis auf zehn) durchaus nachvollziehbar und damit auch die Schlussfolgerung.

→ project-syndicate.org: “The Coming Greater Depression of the 2020s”, 28. April 2020