tv Boom Bust RT July 29, 2014 4:29am-5:01am EDT
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they were there i marinate this is boom bust and these are some of the stories that we're tracking for you today. david beckworth is on the show today and he's weighing in on james and a kook is complaint about american conservatives obsession with inflation and you definitely don't want what he has to say and boom bust all star yanis varoufakis such down with me earlier today to discuss greece from greece along with the latest happenings in and around the euro zone then in today's big deal edward harris and i are discussing europe the i.m.f. and it all starts right now.
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though there in our lead story today the economic implications of russia's involvement in the conflict over ukraine now as we all know russia has been facing increased sanctions from the u.s. when their allies as a result of the conflict in ukraine and sentiment towards russia assets has seriously seriously soured since the july seventeenth downing of a malaysian airlines jet in ukraine by a missile that the u.s. says was probably supplied by the russian military now german chancellor angela merkel has said that she's ready to back a halt on current arms sales to russia and would take part in an e.u. council session if one was convened merkel is hoping to have the e.u. sign off on sanctions by the end of this week and said that she's prepared for german technology exports to take a hit as expected blowback from such sanctions now the european commission that's the twenty eight nation regulatory arm is drawing of detailed proposals for broader sanctions against against russia after getting the go ahead from e.u.
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diplomats this past friday the polish foreign minister said quote we are getting to a point when sanctions will be painful and double edged but if we don't introduce them the situation could get even worse. now meanwhile russia's my sex index is set for its worst performing month since march and was down one point nine percent by the close in moscow on monday russian stocks fell to an eleven week low in the rubles of the most among emerging market currencies diplomats are scheduled to meet tuesday and are slated to curb russian bank access to the capital markets they're also expected to agree to curtail exports of defense and dual use goods and limits on equipment sales for deep sea drilling and shale oil production now despite all of this just last week the i.m.f. said that russia's g.d.p. will expand at zero point two percent this year and russia's economy grew zero point one percent in the second quarter meaning that the country has avoided slipping into a technical recession the russian government has said that it expects the economy
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to expand zero point five percent this year which would be the slowest pace since russian president vladimir putin came into power in two thousand now this story isn't going anywhere and as always we'll be tracking all the latest developments for you here on being bussed. to. central banks around the world for playing a massive monetary experiment through quantitative easing but now someone out there done with it now on one hand the bank of england in the federal reserve they're getting out of the game but on the other hand the bank of japan is staying the course and the e.c.b. could be joining the q.e. game in the very very near future so i spoke with monetary guru dr david beckworth about quantitative easing market monetarism and inflation he's a professor of economics at western kentucky university and
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a proponent of market monetarism and nominal g.d.p. targeting now i started off our conversation by asking him about conservative economic writer james had a coup because his complaint about. conservative obsession with inflation and their argument that it's under reported by the government that we're back with what he thought about this very subject and here's what he had to say. i think he makes a reasonable arguments and one that unfortunately is not always heard by my friends on the right he makes really great points if those numbers were true we would have seen a long recession i mean the implication of higher than reported inflation over the past decade means a real g.d.p. with a negative for you know since two thousand we just haven't seen that and there's a tendency to want to look at things in a while that do go a price of gas prices milt but we're also going to things that go down look at our
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phones or smartphones a lot of the outside on there that used to cost money you know books encyclopedias g.p.s. radios all those things that we purchased separately we now get practically for free we more of those things and we tend to focus on those things that do go up but that is pretty clear you know inflation has been if anything over the past five years during this crisis now pat cook us writes for the american enterprise institute which is a conservative think tank and he isn't dorce nominal g.d.p. targeting is something conservatives should get behind so how would nominal g.d.p. targeting work well for people who believe in limited government. well you know ideal world it would restore monetary stability so that we would have to worry about what the fed is doing and we could be great to get to a point where we didn't have to have conversations about the fed i mean this has policies that been honestly very ad hoc over the past five years i'm not sure the
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fed even knows what it's going to do from one meaning to the next i mean i know they are at least based on the conditions and stuff but even they are not one hundred percent certain you know how they respond how they will respond in different circumstances so one thing it will do is it would provide more rule based systematic behavior and we don't know what the future holds but it would be nice to know with some certainty how the fed would respond in different circumstances so put that into play the other argument you can make is that if you do get to the point where you are maintaining monetary stability you're going to have these big crashes like we had in two thousand in two thousand and nine you would also have the great depression you're nineteen twenty nine hundred thirty three sharp contraction and if he hadn't had those there would be calls for a large fiscal stimulus which really makes conservatives you know unhappy so you know my my fleet of my fellow conservatives are you know picture poison and i think the better one is they have a monetary policy term by a nominal g.d.p. that maintains monetary stability and minimizes the need for other government
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intervention in the economy i think it's a compelling argument many conservatives overlook dad let's talk about the tools that central banks can use to target nominal g.d.p. now the bank of england has stopped its quantitative easing the federal stops in but the back of japan is doing it and some people are now urging the e.c.b. to use it as well so what's the empirical evidence they can we has actually been effective as a monetary policy tool and the us britain or japan. well honestly i think the evidence still to come in and we can't rush to judgment but what we do know i think does point to the possibility of q.e. doing a lot more than this been done so far at least in the u.s. and the euro zone in japan is that we taking a very different path then the other major central banks is committed to a permanent belly of the monetary base is going to raise its inflation target from
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zero but on zero percent to two percent and the fed for example never made any of those commitments all the fed said is we're going to temporarily increase our balance sheet now that temporaries been within a few years but even though they were projected to bring it down the next someone came to you and say hey i'm going to give you a thousand dollars next year and i'm going to pay me back it's really not going to have that big an effect on your your spending decisions however if you need to really keep that thousand dollars for every deathly change in how you respond and the federal reserve is effectively done something white that is and this is evident if you look at inflation forecasts. they don't see any you don't see any sustained breaks from the rosalie. cast so the vet is said to say you know it's very clear q.e. is temporary what we're doing is this is a stopgap measure japan is taking a very different approach this approach is what christina romer calls the a rigid regime change it's you know it's going to permanently double the size of
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the monetary base which is going to and the long run raise the price level raise dollar incomes or yen incomes and that by itself sends a signal back to the present that i need to rebalance my portfolio he thinks differently so there is a fundamental difference in the course a good suit europe which hasn't done anything near that at all it's even worse if you know if you look at the numbers come out of japan and i'm going to be careful because japan's and issue taxes there's not it's not clear that everyone supports it in japan but what we've seen so far is their g.d.p. numbers are higher than the u.s. in the euro zone they've gotten core inflation up believe it got to three point three percent is core inflation this is you know the trend underlying movement it's it's kind of zero it's around three percent now that's remarkable given they had twenty years of deflation and stagnant growth so the evidence so far that suggest it can't be done we thought wait and see if a sustainable if there's the political will for it and it really didn't the day it comes out of a political decision so if you were doing q.e.
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how would you have done it so that it would have been more effective and one of the themes that capricious so ad hoc. well our started back in two thousand and eight course this is easy to say this now but i would have said look if i were are the dictator of fed i would communicate the public very clearly and continually that i will do whatever it takes to keep the economy in. peter nominal g.d.p. on his trajectory by that i mean keep growing and on the path that had been capacity caters so dollar income to continue to grow about forty five percent a year on average and then commit to do whatever is possible it would it would signal that it may need some first steps it would be very very aggressive of front and that is how you do it and if it done that and you can then maybe they can some time instead of us you would have seen the need for this subsequent you know q e one q each huge huge victories and i would argue that the cubans that we saw that
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we had are evidence that fed policies weren't very effective if i could go below the balance sheet means they're not addressing the problem is the problem is there's still a hide me you know of a demand for some liquid safe assets people are still somewhat uncertain so if you can address upfront that theory or even the budget go a long ways and not having to worry about it if you go to australia if you can draw on them they could be good they were very aggressive during the great recession hit them too and they were able to stabilize the group path a very nominal congar nominal g.d.p. and yet they did not have to have a huge you know expansion of their balance sheet so they signaled their commitment and they were able to do it and now the interesting you have australia is they also had a huge housing boom not a lot of household debt and despite that they're able to do much better than the us during the great recession. that was dr david beckworth professor of economics at
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western kentucky university. time now for a very quick break but stick around because when we return dr adonis verify this is on the program now you're on a sat down with me earlier today to discuss the latest happenings in and around euro land and then in today's big deal edward harris and i are discussing europe the i.m.f. and loan to euro centric show today and remember you can see all segments of featured in today's show on you tube of you tube dot com slash and bust our t.v. and on through hulu dot com slash boom. now before we go here are a look at some your closing numbers of the bell come on.
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that's where we've been stewart's one year's best buy the progression of derivatives trading is that now they've got the ability not just to move the price of a stock but to move the price of a country in the case of greece other countries or ukraine what's america doing in ukraine they want to gas us let's let's drill down on the bus let's use every frickin derivative trick we can under the books let's bring in jill political trick just plain old. iran like syria has been george very harshly on the leads on to the constant battle for change so isn't it justified the in if not pursuing defense now weapon down you know raising to spectrum of percent revenue growth would lead to one young who say move ton you see we've developing nuclear weapons in the home. space and you did the one.
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so you. being in the movie the full make up and swim you story. we would be stupid not to take you. if you drive people away from the dollar many people now it must be sitting there saying gosh if we have u.s. dollars and the u.s. decides they don't like us they're going to put sanctions on those so people more and more people would say maybe i should use the u.s. dollar. right. first street. and i would think that you're. on our reporters with their. instrument.
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in the. well now after the great financial crisis greece plummeted into a hole that it's still still struggling to climb out of but with real wages declining it economic growth looking weak when will the greek economy finally recover that's the big question so to get a better handle on this situation i spoke earlier with dr yanis varoufakis professor of economics at the university of texas at austin and he holds the same position at the university of athens and we spoke to him from greece where he is now younis is also the author of the book the global minute america the true causes of the financial crisis and the future of the world economy i first asked younis what he thought of joseph the. stiglitz argument that the e.u.
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has focused on public sector debt and deficits when the real problem is private debt here's what he had to say. indeed he has except that he's not spelling out precisely what he ought to be saying. what he what what what what. the truth behind this phony emphasis on public debt has to do with the banking sector the banks of spain portugal of greece of france of germany where in dire straits after two thousand and eight and the whole emphasis on public that the whole purpose of the bailout plans was so as to cynically effect the transfer of banking losses from the books of the banks onto the shoulders of the taxpayers thus the great emphasis on public debt which was not just applied on micro-economic grounds now yes i want to have a more wide ranging conversation with you today but we've got to talk about greece
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and i can't help but notice the private sector wages in greece are still dropping so when it's a real recovery going to occur there. the answer to your pertinent question is when europe and the government it's a come clean when they come clean on the fact that the insolvency of the greek or social economy that happened in two thousand and ten is simply with its transforming itself was not going away as a result of either we never dealt with it we dealt with it by piling up huge new debts on the shoulders of an insolvent state and then that state passed it on to the private sector in the form of tax hikes and adduction intentions and so on that induced aggregate demand so that they insolvency that begun two thousand made simply. with the economy when we stopped doing that then there would be a chance of recovery. now i also notice that house prices in greece are still
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dropping and the combination of lower wages and house prices still dropping has to put the squeeze on the middle class and that could cause the recession to go on for longer so where is the demand going to come from the unset is that there has been a pickup a slide because in demand over the last eight nine months. for a very simple reason the decision by a chance for america not to go to greece out of the you. thought a little bit of confidence amongst those greeks who have money abroad and the bring it to greece and spread it so that has caused a little bit of a pickup but under no circumstances recovery and we've also had a boost of good because of the troubles of gyptian tourist industry and in particular the turkish tourist industry but none of that is going to stop greece.
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vicious cycle of self reinforcing recession with there will be no serious investment to speak of as long as the good state and the good banks are the main insolvent so the government budget is now supposed to be in surplus but do you think that this has any significance. well let's be clear on on something the big budget is in. a deficit of between ten and twelve percent. if you try to subtract from that deficit. the interest payments due to our creditors then the greek government is more or less breaking even. perhaps it is a small deficit but remember greece is in the class of the loan agreement with its credit goes to the troika of lenders and under the loan agreement we are supposed to be running six percent primary surpluses year in year
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out for twenty years you know they'll be able to meet our repayments through the trick of lenders that is an impossibility and therefore it is possible to be speaking of surpluses. now greece had a government debt to g.d.p. of one hundred seventy four percent through the first quarter of the year and although by niels in greece are down short rates are high and that doesn't suggest an easy backstop for greece so how does greece get through this without a massive massive restructuring. it won't the massive restructuring will have to happen if greece is to get through but remember i mean what has been happening over the last four years is the equivalent of the banking sector the strategy of extending and pretending. for years now greece has been insolvent. that the great and the good in europe as well as of the i.m.f. extending credit card line to the greek government. under very stringent conditions
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that. from which the greek lender will have to agree those loans while the is a black hole of greek debt is getting worse and worse and there is absolutely nothing on the horizon to suggest that this is. it possible and to live on less not only do we have a got it's back to about we have less. of the problem of our banks which are insolvent remember great banks have montauk forming loans in the region of forty percent so these are like two or three problems a similar thing a sleeve ending and they have to be tackled at once and if unless and until they have tackled it once. the greek story we continue along its path yet is what impact do you think that sanctions with more teeth by the e.u. against russia will have on the economy in the eurozone and in greece. greece is in such troubles that whatever happens between. the ukraine and
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europe. is the level of economic destruction this company since i don't think is going to make much of a difference what is happening at the european level however is that there is absolutely no doubt but while russia is going to suffer more than the eurozone in absolute terms the fact that the euro zone is in its wrongs of deflationary forces the deflationary winds that are blowing very powerfully cry the gaiters and including the core of the gators on germany holland austria finland. they affect all the sanctions and the ill effects of the standoff between russia and europe are simply going to make the conflation of the forces more powerful and the job of the european central bank even more difficult. that was dr younis vera fokus
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professor of economics at the university of texas texas austin time now for today's big deal. big deal time my right here and now today and i are discussing europe the i.m.f. and loans now first up is ireland that's first on our agenda and they're currently considering how to repay their debt to both the i.m.f. as well as the european union so add can you tell me about this what's going on what's up with our waterloo and the poster child for the european union terms of countries that have gone through austerity and gotten out on the other side their economies growing in this ng to be doing well compared to some of the others even though they have you know double digit unemployment and they still are having problems their house house prices are forty percent below their peak but they want
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to show that ireland's done well so the i was looking to repay some of the loans so they can reduce the interest payments and so the question is can they get that done if they're going to repay some of the loans they have to repay them all they can't actually get a reduction in one sector and in the other so this is sort of an e.u. wide kind of thing that's going to go forward i think that there's a good chance that the e.u. says yes to this and they're taking the right steps it sounds like most of all you know the steps that the i.m.f. want them to take in those stuff ok so ireland wants to pay back the i.m.f. loans first because they're more expensive that makes plenty of sense and that does seem to be the case at least the i.m.f. loans in ukraine for example they've been exacting a hard toll on the ukrainian population and political system so can you give me an update on what's going on there that's a big uptick compared to ireland you know obviously we're just getting started in ukraine but if you think about greece in. you know the huge harsh austerity is
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the is the positioning of the. in order to make these loans viable the ukrainian government basically collapse because they weren't able to get these terms through parliament we're talking you know privatization austerity pension cuts the whole nine yards and in addition to that there's also they have to raise their gas prices to get rid of subsidies which the i.m.f. doesn't want them to have and so you know there is the potential. base of a failed state in your hands with ukraine no government there's a military confrontation there the same time so i think that you know the potential that the i.m.f. actually pulls the plug you can't discount right now an international court hog that russia must pay shareholders a defunct oil company u.k.'s fifty billion dollars. what is happening here is the big news today and what is the significance of this vote for me the significance is the relationship between that event and what's going on in ukraine so you know
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obviously the western media sees russia as complicit in what's going on in ukraine and then at the same time you're getting this whole yukos thing the fifty billion dollars let's remember this is only part of the shareholders there are other shareholders who could get more money as well so we're talking you know. up to one hundred billion dollars in terms of liability and wasn't that what the one hundred billion was the number that the shareholders were initially going for it was it was in this particular thing but that those are only part of the shareholders are actually others there's another lawsuit somewhere else that's going on for the other shareholders and they also want their money coming to them so you know from my perspective on the economic front this is this is mostly a political thing and really what it boils down to is the fact that people are the western media can look at this is saying look you know we have a rogue state here in two thousand and four two thousand and five look at what they're doing in terms of the rule of law they're exporting. that's in the exact same way that we now see with argentina right now argentina is
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a pariah state obviously this is not just a limited sort of incursion what's going on in ukraine russian involvement they've been a rogue state for a long time and we need to lower the boom and increased sanctions so i think it's all part of a. sort of narrative that is developing as we speak now various guests on the show called the i.m.f. and other types and other types of sanctions financial warfare now the tensions over ukraine might lead to even more sanctions against the russian economy so at what reactions are you seeing in the market as relates to these sanctions we only have twenty seconds but i would love to hear i think you know we're looking at russia that they're definitely undervalued but the question is the political risk associated with getting involved with those so i think that most people are staying away from russia and that's mostly what i see in the markets so there you have it this will not be the last time we talk about this that i feel for you. and thank
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tissue inquiry furthermore tells restriction. really knows what's been signed the. plant. and if. it's washing up i think that the google question is that i do it. was certainly at the. root of b. of it's. that it's a ladder when i need it so the minute the whole supports i'm still spoke with. near three but didn't have a heart guess i'm. not letting that and those of. those.
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solutions for. it is the. norm and don't cook. israel's heaviest bombardment of gaza yet turns night into day dozens of being killed including children and the israeli prime minister warns of a quote protracted. more devastation. in east ukraine government shelling ravages an elderly. leaving at least five people. sick and tired of european observers in east ukraine say their attempts to work with the malaysian plane crashed.
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