“Recession risk pushes Italy closer to a financial and political earthquake”
Gedankenspiel: In Italien kommt es zu einer Rezession: Wer hat Schuld und welche Wirkung hat es auf die Politik? Sicherlich kein Szenario, über das wir uns freuen können:
- “Italy’s economy has stalled abruptly over the summer and the industrial sector is on the cusp of outright recession, threatening to drive the country’s knife-edge debt dynamics into dangerous territory. The sudden slowdown comes as mounting political alarm pushes risk spreads on 10-year Italian debt to a five-year high of 290, a sign that capital outflows are picking up again.” – bto: Das führt bei uns zum weiteren Anwachsen des “ökonomisch völlig irrelevanten” Ausgleichsposten Target2-Forderungen.
- “Italy’s debt trajectory is acutely vulnerable to any change in the pace of nominal GDP growth or any shift in the fiscal outlook. Spreads have risen 175 basis points since April, shadowing the pattern before the 2011 crisis. (…) there are eerie similarities with events in that episode. Once spreads broke through 300, the crisis span out of control within weeks.” – bto: Das hatten wir damals und werden wir erneut bekommen, es sei denn, die EZB kauft bedingungslos alles. Ausschließen können wir das nicht.
- “The surprising new development is the sharp fall in IHS Markit’s manufacturing gauge for Italy to 50.1 in August, just above the ‘boom-bust line’. Business expectations fell to lows last seen in May 2013 during the eurozone banking crisis. (…) Bank of America says Italy’s GDP growth is ‚flirting with zero‘ in the third quarter. It warned that risk spreads could ‚easily rise to 400 basis points‘ if the budget breaches fiscal rules. The first draft is to be prepared this month.” – bto: Damit wäre die ohnehin nicht mehr kontrollierbare Verschuldung noch mehr außer Kontrolle.
- “Fitch placed the country’s ‚BBB‘ rating on negative watch last Friday, saying it ‚expects a degree of fiscal loosening that would leave Italy’s very high level of public debt more exposed to potential shocks‘. The debt ratio has only just begun to stabilize at 132pc of GDP a full nine years into the global expansion.” – bto: vor allem trotz nachhaltiger Primärüberschüsse im Haushalt!
- “Leaders of both the nationalist Lega party and the radical Five Star movement responded caustically: policy would henceforth be set in the interests of the Italian people, not for the convenience of rating agencies. (…) The flat tax would cost €50bn a year and a basic income for the poor would cost €17bn. These two have to go together to preserve the Left-Right coalition. A roll-back of pension reform would cost €8bn. A suspension of VAT rises costs 0.7pc of GDP. Italy is supposed to be going in the opposite direction with consolidation of 1pc of GDP a year under the ‚preventive arm’ of the Stability Pact.” – bto: und? Was wollen wir machen? Die Bundeswehr schicken? Ich glaube nicht, dass die EZB wieder den Zinstrick machen wird, um so die Regierung unter Druck zu setzen. Gut möglich, dass sie sich nicht unter Druck setzen lassen.
- “The Lega’s elder statesman (and de facto co-premier), Giancarlo Giorgetti, said the coalition would go above 3pc if necessary, citing the need for a blitz of infrastructure spending after the Genoa bridge disaster. The plan is to invoke the ‚Golden Rule‘ that exempts investment from the deficit. It is a way to evade curbs.” – bto: Die anderen Länder werden das gerne geschehen lassen, gibt es ihnen doch mehr Freiraum das Gleiche zu tun.
- “The EU must move with care. Italy is not Greece. It is a net contributor to the EU budget and is large enough to set off a systemic crisis for monetary union. Mr Salvini and his inner circle are hard eurosceptics, hoping to engineer circumstances that makes it possible to pull Italy out of the euro.” – bto: aber nicht, ohne zuvor möglichst viel Geld von uns bekommen zu haben.
- “Claudio Borghi, a Lega economist and head of parliament’s budget committee, says the EU elites will not succeed in bringing Italy to its knees a second time by pressure on the bond market. ‚They can’t play the same trick twice,‘ he said. ‚Italians know who controls the spreads. We’re back where we were when the crisis began in 2011. There are only two golden keys to get out of this slaughterhouse: either the ECB agrees to hold the risk spread at 150 points; or we take back our own currency and restore national independence,‘ he told the Daily Telegraph last month.” – bto: Ja, sie können glaubhaft drohen.
- “The risk for the EU is that if it pushes Italy too hard on fiscal rules and provokes a showdown, the Lega-Grillini will retaliate by activating their ‚minibot‘ plan for a parallel currency to keep the banks afloat. This would subvert monetary union from within, leading quickly to the rupture of the euro. (…) Unless the EU authorities yield some ground to the Italians, they risk setting off the existential crisis they most fear.” – bto: Aber auch so würden sie nur weitere Zeit kaufen. Gelöst wird das Problem durch Nachgeben nicht.
