Свежий еженедельный комментарий Джона Хассмана оказался довольно богатым на эмоции и цитаты. Проехались, как обычно, по рецессии в США, по ЕЦБ да по Греции.

Но сначала о думающих экономистах:

The way you spot a thoughtful economist, in my view, is to listen for an understanding of both data analysis and equilibrium. In our experience, most economists and Wall Street analysts seem to analyze the economy as what I'd call a "flow of anecdotes" - weekly unemployment claims did this, retail sales did that, we got a positive surprise here, and so forth, without putting that information into any real structure and without knowing which data points actually matter or in what combination. In contrast, good economists think about the economy as a system - where multiple sectors interact.

Цитата из думающего экономиста, в данном случае это Лакшман Ачутан из ECRI, утверждающий, что Штаты уже вовсю рецессят: 

"A recession is a process, and I think a lot of people don't understand that; they're looking for two negative quarters of GDP. But it is a process where sales disappoint, so production falls, employment falls, income falls, and then sales fall. That vicious circle has started." 

А вот и виновные:

I feel it is important to emphasize - as we move toward recession - that we shouldn't blame what is happening here on capitalism or free markets. We really have only a caricature of those here. We have a system that is constantly eager to abandon the proper role of government in the markets - which is effective regulation of risk - and to substitute it with the worst role of government in the markets - which is absorbing losses for those whose losses should not be absorbed, and pursuing policies tilted toward the constant creation of speculative bubbles and the avoidance of required economic adjustments, rather than the productive allocation of capital.

Переходя к Греции, Хассман на пальцах объясняет таким ленивым тупицам, как я, о каком именно "плече" идёт речь в случае с EFSF и грядущим спасением периферии. Fiscal commitment со стороны стран ЕС от силы хватит на спасение одной лишь Греции, зато с помощью денег ЕЦБ можно спасти и всех остальных, кто нуждается в том, чтобы быть спасённым. И тут есть закавыка:

The key problem is this - in the event that there were losses on the purchased debt, any losses exceeding the true fiscal commitment of the EFSF would amount to money printing. The ECB will have none of it. Hence the resistance from ECB officials about this idea (not to mention that the original promise that the ECB would never be used to buy the debt of distressed countries has already been broken).

Короче, всё как бы плохо, но мы уже привыкли к этому перманентному состоянию и даже пытаемся делать на нём деньги...

http://www.hussmanfunds.com/wmc/wmc111003.htm