February 6, 2008

You're watching the articles of Euribor for the day on February 6, 2008.

Marching one of Keynes

It is a pity, because it could could be talking about the brand of beer, but I fear that plays to speak of John Maynard Keynes one of the most influential economists of the twentieth century and also one of the most controversial, given its defense in the state interventionism . Celebrities were following their appointments:

If I do I owe you a pound, I have a problem, but if I owe you a million, the problem is yours
After any action by a politician you can find something said by an intellectual fifteen years ago.
In the long run we will all be dead

Another of the classic phrases of Keynes was one that read: "If they get away economists to become competent and humble people, the level of dentists, that would be splendid" The truth is that he took a bad example to the dentists, maybe 70 years ago would make more sense, but at the price they are or orthodontic implants, almost better than economists remain as están.Sus theories are discussed, but it is interesting to review them from time to time as they tried to cope with more than 75 years ago the same problems now, specifically had a very important role in the measures after the economic crash of 29.

A term coined and now has a lot of force is "liquidity trap" which shows a paradox in which, monetary policy has simply lost its effectiveness in influencing the economic situation of a country because people do not spend the amounts increasing money that produces the central bank. Let's say that even though the central bank injected money, is useless. The cause of this is the pessimism of consumers and their reluctance to spend.

That pessimism or lack of expectations we can see it in the "parable of the nannies" and then I explained that we saw in the area of comments a few months ago and which brought another translation of the original.

Imagine a cooperative composed of 150 couples willing to become nannies (that unfortunately the neighborhood, none was Scarlett Johansson, as in the movie) when others in need. In return they could receive the same service when needed. The manner of payment was made with coupons whose value amounted to an hour of child care. As the couples started from the idea that it was not hard to look after children outside, the system had a good basis for trade-hour nannies.
It was originally handed a coupon to each couple and the system worked well. The welfare of each rose as they were leaving because it was easier to get the service. But you had to have an adequate volume of coupons in circulation to ensure the smooth functioning of the system. As there were few coupons in circulation, if a couple wanted to get out more often needed more than it had. Some couples began to build up reserves, others felt that the need for emergency and began a treasured and exits night fell.
But the evening departures of a couple were the demand for service nannies. The less demand, the speed of movement of the coupons was reduced. Since the available non-circulating, couples were forced to keep their vouchers to be used only in emergencies. The possibility of winning coupons will be reduced still further because members of the cooperative were more concerned about savings.
All this led to a vicious circle: members of the cooperative were left at home for fear of spending their coupons. And although they wanted to win for emergencies, could not do it because other couples also left out for the same reason. Everyone wanted to provide babysitting, but nobody wanted to hire them. The cooperative became so bored in a group that no longer went out at night.

The clearest example of the "liquidity trap" in Japan and we can see how some non-existent interest rates (absolute liquidity) did little to revive the economy. Could this be the main cause of the strength of Trichet, in his message? Will it be a Keynesiano Trichet?

Following this theoretical roll, let's see now that no matter how dark it is, it's always better to think that we know it in a story by Walt Disney (which, incidentally, won 26.5% less in its fiscal first quarter but managed to exceed the expectations of Wall Street).