ΙΔΟΥ το σουξέ στόρι της Πορτογαλίας: Στο 381% το συνολικό χρέος επί του ΑΕΠ και πουλάνε ελληνοφαγία στους πολίτες!
olympiada
Σε συνολικό επίπεδο, το συνολικό επίπεδο του χρέους της Πορτογαλίας ανέρχεται σε 381% του ΑΕΠ,
περιλαμβανομένου των χρεών των νοικοκυριών και τις μη χρηματοπιστωτικές
επιχειρήσεις – είναι πολύ πάνω από την Ελλάδα συνολικό χρέος (286% του
ΑΕΠ)!
For all the attention given to Greece, is Portugal really that much better off?
Even a brief glance at the facts suffices. Portugal is no less
bankrupt than Greece. The country’s government debt, at 124% of GDP,
might be lower than in Greece.
However, government debt is just one –
even though important – part of the full debt picture.
On an aggregate level, Portugal’s overall debt level — at 381% of GDP
when also including private households and non-financial corporations —
is well above Greece’s total debt level (286% of GDP).
So while Greece’s problems mainly manifest themselves via government
debt, Portugal suffers from too much debt in all three sectors of the
economy.
The debt that keeps on growing
At the same time, debt continues to grow much faster than the
Portuguese economy. Between 2008 and 2013, aggregate debt grew by 69
percentage points. In order to stop the debt growing faster than the
country’s economy, the government sector alone would have to improve its
fiscal position by 3.6% of GDP.
Given the overall status of the Portuguese economy and the debt
problems of the private sector, that improvement is an impossible task.
Trying to achieve it would push the economy into outright depression.
Given all these facts, it is all the more astonishing that the German
Bundestag voted unanimously in favor of Portugal’s proposal to pay back
loans from the IMF earlier.
Bundestag members did so with great pleasure. Why? Amidst the fraught
negotiations in Brussels with the new Greek government about the
extension of the Greek program, it was a welcome opportunity to claim
that the European approach to the crisis with austerity and reform was
indeed working.
For Portugal, it was a good deal, because it could replace relatively
costly money from the IMF carrying interest around 4% with cheaper
loans from the capital market. But Portugal’s refinancing itself in the
markets is not really a sign of the success of the policy mix in Europe.
Given that the country’s creditors are mainly foreigners, Portugal
cannot inflate the debt away. It is also in no position to grow out of
its debt problem. Assuming a current account surplus of 0.9% (as
achieved in 2013), it would take 128 years just to pay back all foreign
debt.
Portugal’s sober realities
Debt aside, Portugal faces other quite extraordinary challenges: It
has the lowest birth rate in the Eurozone, has to contend with an exodus
of the young people to other countries, the lowest overall level of
qualifications of its population in Europe, as well as low productivity
levels.
With just nine patents per one million inhabitants, Portugal performs
better than Greece (with four patents per million). However, it lags
significantly behind countries such as Italy with 70 and Germany with
277. What about competing on price alone? That is a difficult
proposition for a European country with high debt levels.
Thus, I arrive at two conclusions: First, Portugal will never be in a
position to serve its debt. Second, having access to the capital market
is only the result of ECB policies and not the result of successful
macro or micro policies pursued inside Portugal. But what will this lead
to?
A Greek-style solution?
Until now, the Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis is one of the
few asking openly for direct funding of the governments by the ECB. His
proposal that the ECB buy up government bonds and exchange these into
interest-free perpetuals still seems to be too creative to be broadly
acceptable.
The higher the debt levels of European nations in crisis grow — and
this is simple mathematics — the more visible it will become that this
debt is out of control. Then, the pressure on the ECB to “fix” the
problem with its balance sheet will become overwhelming.
When speaking about Greece, the media often claim that, thanks to the
Eurozone’s extension of the program, the “bankruptcy of the country was
avoided.” This is of course rubbish.
What was postponed was not the bankruptcy itself, but only the
official declaration of Greece’s bankruptcy. Once Greece runs out of
money, it won’t be a temporary liquidity issue (as it is perceived in
the media), but the open declaration of an already well-known fact.
It is important to realize that essentially the same holds true for Portugal.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-02/fairy-tale-portugals-successful-turnaround