Wie die Notenbanken den Sozialismus fördern
Nun merkt es auch die FINANCIAL TIMES (FT). Die Nebenwirkungen der Geldpolitik schlagen sich immer deutlicher nicht nur bei den Vermögenspreisen nieder, sie wirken auch auf das soziale und politische Klima. Klar ist, die Renaissance “linker” Ideen hat auch hier ihren Ursprung. Und man ist versucht zu sagen: zu Recht. Wobei es wichtig ist, daran zu erinnern, dass es gerade bei uns in Deutschland nicht gerechtfertigt ist. Aber nun zur FT:
- “Is Ben Bernanke the father of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez? Not in the literal sense, obviously, but in the philosophical and political sense. As we mark the 10th anniversary of the bull market, it is worth considering whether the efforts of the US Federal Reserve, under Mr Bernanke’s leadership, to avoid 1930s-style debt deflation ended up spawning a new generation of socialists (…).” – bto: was klar ist. Von steigenden Vermögenspreisen profitieren nur jene, die Vermögen haben!
- “Mr Bernanke’s unorthodox ‘cash for trash‘ scheme, otherwise known as quantitative easing, drove up asset prices and bailed out baby boomers at the profound political cost of pricing out millennials from that most divisive of asset markets, property. This has left the former comfortable, but the latter with a fragile stake in the society they are supposed to build.” – bto: Das gilt auch bei uns in Deutschland, verschärft durch die hohe Abgabenlast und die Politik offener Grenzen, die zu mehr Nachfrage nach Wohnraum etc. führt.
- “The 2008 crash itself didn’t destroy wealth, but rather revealed how much wealth had already been destroyed by poor decisions taken in the boom. This underscored the truism that the worst of investments are often taken in the best of times. Mr Bernanke, a keen student of the 1930s, understood that a ‘balance sheet recession’ must be combated by reflating assets. By exchanging old bad loans on the banks’ balance sheets with good new money, underpinned by negative interest rates, the Fed drove asset prices skywards. Higher valuations fixed balance sheets and ultimately coaxed more spending and investment.” – bto: Ich habe übrigens damals in einem Paper für BCG angeregt, die Fed sollte allen Immobilieneigentümern in den USA ihren Kaufpreis garantieren. Die Krise wäre vorbei gewesen UND es wäre denen geholfen worden, die wirklich Probleme hatten.
- “(…) wealth inequality was not the unintended consequence, but the objective, of policy. Soaring asset prices, particularly property prices, drive a wedge between those who depend on wages for their income and those who depend on rents and dividends. This wages versus rents-and-dividends game plays out generationally, because the young tend to be asset-poor and the old and the middle-aged tend to be asset-rich.” – bto: So ist es, aber das verstehen unsere Politiker nicht, denn dann würden sie eine andere Politik betreiben.
- “When asset prices rise much faster than wages, the average person falls further behind. Their stake in society weakens. (…) What then? Well, politics shifts. (…) According to the Pew Research Center, American millennials (defined as those born between 1981 and 1996) are the only generation in which a majority (57 per cent) hold “mostly/consistently liberal” political views, with a mere 12 per cent holding more conservative beliefs. Fifty-eight per cent of millennials express a clear preference for big government. (…) Sixty-seven per cent want the state to provide universal healthcare, and 57 per cent want higher public spending (…).” – bto: Das ist in den USA übrigens weitaus gerechtfertigter als bei uns. Investitionen brauchen wir!
- “One battle ground for the new politics is the urban property market. While average hourly earnings have risen in the US by just 22 per cent over the past 9 years, property prices have surged across US metropolitan areas. (…) The young are locked out. Similar developments in the UK have produced comparable political generational divides. If only the votes of the under-25s were counted in the last UK general election, not a single Conservative would have won a seat.” – bto: Das dürfte auch an anderen Problemen liegen, zum Beispiel die Schulsituation.
- “Ten years ago, faced with the real prospect of another Great Depression, Mr Bernanke launched QE to avoid mass default. Implicitly, he was underwriting the wealth of his own generation, the baby boomers. (…) For the purist, capitalism without default is a bit like Catholicism without hell. But we have confession for a reason. Everyone needs absolution. QE was capitalism’s confessional. But what if the day of reckoning was only postponed? What if a policy designed to protect the balance sheets of the wealthy has unleashed forces that may lead to the mass appropriation of those assets in the years ahead?” – bto: Das ist bekanntlich auch meine Erwartung, nachdem alle Tricks nicht mehr klappen. Wie schrieb ich doch: → “Back to Mesopotamia”
