While Ireland may exit its bailout program at the end of this year, Greece is far from getting out of it. Around 10 to 11 billion euros ($13.1-14.4 billion) from the second half of 2014 will be needed to keep it going next year and in 2015. This will be the Third Act of the economic tragedy unfolding in Greece. Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Finance Minister, confirmed to the European Parliament that “as far as the potential need for a third program for Greece is concerned, it’s clear that despite recent progress, Greece’s troubles will not have been completely resolved by 2014”.
Crisis
“There will have to be another program in Greece,” German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said bluntly on August 20th. The two previous bail-outs amounted to about 240 billion euros but that was not enough. According to the International Monetary Fund, one the Troika member, the estimated uncovered funding needed by Greece for 2014-2015 may amount to 10.9 billion euros.
Leaders, institutions and markets are all looking for guidance to get out of the present crisis. Government confidence is at stake, institutions’ credibility is jeopardized and banking is close to fraud and collusion.
European Union finance ministers failed to reach a deal last week on this controversial issue. Germany and France are at odds about costs distribution. The Banking Union is at stake since this law on rescuing and closing banks in the EU is a key point. The problem is to know who is going to decide what will happen to a failing bank and who will pay for it.
The IREF with “Contribuables Associés”, the largest French taxpayers association, published a study showing how fiscal pressure destroys employment. The main figures of the study reveal the Government lethal action on companies and jobs:
– 12.2 bn € of new corporate taxes
– Tax burden making a 0.5% GDP decrease
– 99.500 jobs destroyed in 2012, 160.000 scheduled t be destroyed in 2013
– 70.000 jobs destroyed because of tax burden increase in 2013
– 21.5% in big companies and 78.5% in middle and small business
Read the study in French: La Boîte à outil de François Hollande détruit l’emploi
Competitiveness is embedded in the private sector. Employment is created only the private sector. Wealth increases through the private sector. No public intervention can manage to replace the private sector, no Government know how to make business and money. As a consequence, the real economy of a country relies on its private sector, not on the Government. Portuguese Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho understood this fact and decreased dramatically corporate tax from 25% to 7.5%.
Since events related to financial, banking, and debt crises regularly make it into the news, a term that seemingly originated from the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) in the late 1970s has become more popular: macroprudential supervision. Whereas microprudential supervision relates to the oversight of individual market participants (e.g. banks), macroprudential policy relates to the supervision of an entire system (e.g. the financial system).
The May Newsletter explains the austerity concerns heralded during April, the European Banking Union issue, the coming implementation of the Tobin Tax and the fact that there was no major banking fatalities during the month.
“A recession can be a good time to grow a business”. Thus is the opinion of Lord Young, a British cabinet minister under late Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and still having his own office in Downing Street. Lord Young’s comments are stated in a report to be published this week and addressed to Prime Minister David Cameron. It is obvious that Lord Young stands for a “creative destruction” and is actually stating an economic truth. But truth is not always welcomed by unions and especially by the Trades Union Congress.
The European Commission’s forecasts are gloomy: a 0.1% decrease of European GDP in 2013 as a 0.4% decrease for the Eurozone. It seems that, one after the other, all the member states are collapsing and get trapped into economical disarray. The European Commission gives more time for France and Netherlands to reduce their deficits, but Slovenia is on the edge of explosion while Cyprus, Spain and Italy are very far from recovering. Europe has become the “Sick Man of the World”.