O artigo do El-Erian apresenta um bom resumo do cenario da atual da crise da economia grega. O fato de ser a leitura de um homem do mercado a torna ainda mais interessante e relevante. A análise dele não é diferente da visão deste blogueiro desde o inicio da crise: alguma forma de reestruturação da divida grega é inevitável e é urgente uma nova abordagem da questão fiscal da zona do euro. Um novo Lehman Brothers não pode ser, obviamente, descartado, mas esta é uma saída que continua sendo pouco provável, pela simples razão de não ser uma saída, mas um suicidio coletivo.
From day one, immense challenges faced the coalition of international institutions that opted for a liquidity approach to address Greece’s debt solvency problems. Now that this coalition is stumbling and bickering publicly, the outlook for Greece has taken a significant turn for the worse. Even as George Papandreou, the Greek prime minister, prepares to reshuffle his cabinet, he must know his nation’s predicament is now extremely hard to reverse.
It is now commonly accepted that Greece’s predicament is due to two inter-related problems: the economy is unable to grow, and the debt burden is enormous. Yet neither has influenced sufficiently the approach that has been adopted by the crisis management coalition, consisting of the Greek government, its European creditors (namely other eurozone governments, the European Commission and the European Central Bank) and the International Monetary Fund.
Instead, the focus has been on dramatic austerity for Greece and massive loans from the official creditors. Not surprisingly, every economic, financial and social indicator for the Greek economy has deteriorated. This has happened both in absolutes term and, more alarmingly, relative to the coalition’s already grim expectations. Such failure naturally encourages a blame game, and sadly that is exactly what is now happening.
Judging from other crisis management episodes around the world, it is normal for both the Greek government and its people to feel let down by European neighbours who they feel under-appreciate the sacrifices made by its population, especially since these same creditors refused to lower interest rate on new loans. Equally, it is normal for the creditors to complain that it is Greece that is not doing enough to counter what is, after all, a home-grown problem.
In principle, these gaps need not be fatal. Yet the current attempts to bridge them are nowhere near enough. They would do little beyond, at best, prolonging for a few months an already unsustainable situation. More likely, they would be undermined rapidly by two recent developments that suggest that the current approach to crisis management in Greece is coming to its end.
First, and most importantly, the Greek government is losing control of the streets. As protests turn increasingly ugly, the pursuit of a national political consensus becomes even more elusive. This is especially true if all Mr Papandreou, or another leader, can offer is a step back to a discredited approach that involves sacrifices with no evidence of lasting benefits.
Second, even if Greece can deliver, European creditors fundamentally disagree among themselves as to how best to support the country — other than to push the IMF to lend more. Some, led by Germany, want fairer burden-sharing with the private sector, rather than to continue to fund both the needs of the Greek economy and full repayments to private lenders that are now exiting the country. But the ECB strongly opposes this, especially now that its balance sheet is contaminated by large holdings of Greek bonds.
Responding properly to all this is an engineering nightmare and a political headache. Critically, it now requires giving up on at least one, and more likely at least two, of the three principles that have underpinned the coalition’s approach to Greece: avoiding a debt restructuring, a currency devaluation and a change in the fiscal set up of the eurozone.
Europe faces a moment of truth. The sooner this is recognised, the greater the chance of shifting to a “plan B”. If not the prospects are stark: the already-difficult outlook facing the three bail-out countries (Greece, Ireland and Portugal) will surely be compounded by a decade of internal economic implosion. The task must now be to limit fundamental contagion to countries that are yet to be bailed out (notably Spain), and to maintain the integrity of the Euro. But the time for action is fast running out.
Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Executive and co-CIO of Pimco, the world’s leading bond manager.
Fonte: FT
