Istorija rodo, kad krizės metu skolų atidavimo absoliutizavimas kenkia. Jungtinė Karalystė po Pirmojo pasaulinio karo prisilaikė šio reikalavimo, labai taupė, darė didžiules aukas, bet smunkanti ekonomika tik didino skolas, nieko neišėjo.
Dabar kyla klausimas, ar taupymo režimo ES sukelta recesija Vokietijoje privers Vokietiją suabejoti tokio perdėto taupymo verte, ar ne [1].
1. So
the policy response to a crisis of excessive debt has, in effect, been a
demand that debtors pay off their debts in full. What does history say
about that strategy? That’s easy: It doesn’t work. Whatever progress
debtors make through suffering and saving is more than offset through
depression and deflation. That is, for example, what happened to Britain after World War I,
when it tried to pay off its debt with huge budget surpluses while
returning to the gold standard: Despite years of sacrifice, it made
almost no progress in bringing down the ratio of debt to G.D.P.
And that’s what is happening now. A recent comprehensive report on debt is titled “Deleveraging, what deleveraging?”;
despite private cutbacks and public austerity, debt levels are rising
thanks to poor economic performance. And we are arguably no closer to
escaping our debt trap than we were five years ago.
But
it has been very hard to get either the policy elite or the public to
understand that sometimes debt relief is in everyone’s interest.
Instead, the response to poor economic performance has essentially been
that the beatings will continue until morale improves.
Maybe,
just maybe, bad news — say, a recession in Germany — will finally bring
an end to this destructive reign of virtue. But don’t count on it.
