“G20합의가 더큰 위기 부를 것”<슈피겔>
“위기의 원인은 무분별한 달러 발행”
“과도한 부양책은 빚.실업.인플레 예고”
출처 : 연합뉴스 2009/04/04 06:27 송고
http://www.yonhapnews.co.kr/international/2009/04/04/0601120100AKR20090404008800082.HTML?template=2089
독일어 원문 http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,617151,00.html
영어 원문 http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,617224,00.html
(베를린=연합뉴스) 김경석 특파원 = G20(주요 20개국) 정상들이 세계적 경제위기에 대처하기 위한 야심찬 계획을 발표했지만 그같은 접근방식은 지금보다 더 큰 위기를 위한 토대일 뿐이라고 독일 시사주간 슈피겔이 3일 지적했다.
‘독일, 슈퍼스타의 몰락’, ‘부(富)의 전쟁’ 등의 저자인 가보르 슈타인가르트 슈피겔지 워싱턴 지국장은 칼럼을 통해 전날 런던에서 열린 G20 회의가 끝난 뒤 각국 정상들이 ‘역사적 합의’, ‘전환점’이라고 자화자찬했고 그들의 등 뒤에는 ‘안정, 성장, 고용’이라는 이 회의의 모토가 큼지막하게 쓰여있지만 실제로 그들이 이번 합의를 통해 예고한 것은 ‘빚, 실업, 인플레이션’이었다고 주장했다.
슈피겔은 흥분을 가라앉힌 뒤 이번 회의의 결과물을 냉정하게 들여다보면 “각국 정상들은 쉬운 길을 택했다”면서 경기부양을 위해 내년말까지 5조달러를 쏟아붓겠다는 약속은 “실제로는 역사적 전환점이 아니라 몰락의 전환점이 될 것”이라고 말했다.
국제사회가 위기에 맞서 싸우는 과정에서 “더 큰 다음 위기를 위한 토대”를 쌓았다는 것이 슈피겔의 분석이다.
슈피겔은 이번 위기의 원인을 추적하다 보면 궁극적으로 ‘국가의 실패’가 자리잡고 있다면서 “금융시장의 탐욕가들인 월가의 은행들은 (위기를 초래하는 데) 중요한 역할을 했지만 결정적인 것은 아니었다”고 설명했다. 은행 매니저들은 단기 투기자금을 전국으로 배분하는 딜러에 불과했다는 것이다.
슈피겔은 “백악관의 아편 재배업자(조지 부시 전 미국 대통령을 지칭)는 자신의 재임기간에 재배면적을 엄청나게 늘렸고 그의 농장에서 수확한 주요 작물은 전세계로 퍼져나간 값싼 달러였다”면서 “이것이 은행의 자산을 부풀렸고 거품성장을 초래했으며 미국 부동산시장의 투기화를 부추겼다”고 평가했다. 더구나 금융시장의 투명성 결여는 아편이 전세계로 퍼져나가는데 더없이 좋은 환경이었다.
슈피겔은 “현대에도 기업들이 스스로 할 수 없는 두가지가 있다면 전쟁을 일으키는 것과 돈을 찍어내는 것”이라면서 부시 전 대통령은 9.11 테러에 대한 대응조치로 이 두가지를 모두 추진했다고 회고했다.
최근들어 많은 언론들이 부시의 첫번째 실수, 즉 이라크 침공의 문제점을 지적하면서도 “전세계를 값싼 화폐의 홍수 속에 빠뜨린 두번째 잘못은 거의 인지하지 않고 있다”고 슈피겔은 꼬집었다.
슈피겔은 “역대 어느 대통령도 부시만큼 많은 돈을 찍어내 유통시키지 않았다”면서 “자체에 위험이 내재된 새 돈은 재화.용역 형태의 실물가치로 뒷받침되지 않았다”고 비판했다. 따라서 “초기에는 세계경제의 활성화에 도움이 됐을 수도 있지만 이런 과정으로 만들어진 성장률은 허구였고 미국은 환각상태에 빠져들기 시작했다”는 것이다.
부시 전 대통령과 앨런 그린스펀 전 미국연방준비제도이사회(FRB) 전 의장도 문제점을 인식하고 있었고 어쩌면 그들의 행동이 얼마나 무책임한지도 잘 알고 있었던 것 같다는 같다. 그들은 무차별적인 달러 발행을 전세계에 숨기기 위해 할 수 있는 모든 일을 했다.
미국은 2006년 이후 통화공급량에 관한 통계를 더이상 발표하지 않고 있고 이제는 이 통계가 거의 ‘미국의 국가기밀’로 취급되고 있다.
그러나 비공식적인 추산을 통해 한때 세계에서 가장 강한 통화였던 달러화의 내부적 붕괴 조짐을 엿볼 수 있다. 이 통계가 비밀로 다뤄지기 시작한 이후 달러화의 팽창 속도는 무려 3배나 빨라진 것으로 나타났다. 지난해의 경우 유로화의 공급량은 5% 늘어난 데 비해 달러화는 17%나 급증했다.
슈피겔은 “미국의 정권 교체 후에도 오히려 방종이 더욱 속도를 내고 있고 국가 부채는 갈수록 커지고 있으며 오바마 행정부 예산의 3분의1은 세수로 보전되지 않고 있다”고 밝힌 뒤 “미국에서 유일하게 100%의 생산성을 유지하고 있는 곳은 재무부 조폐국”이라고 꼬집었다.
슈피겔은 “런던 회의에서도 정상들이 거의 모든 것을 얘기했지만 이 문제만은 건드리지 않았다”면서 “이 때문에 이번 위기를 초래한 바로 그 ‘기재’로 다시 그 위기에 맞서는 결과가 됐다”고 지적했다. 값싼 달러의 재배면적은 다시 확대됐고 이번에는 국가가 아예 딜러로 나섰다.
슈피겔은 “우리는 진정으로 역사적인 시대에 살고 있고 이런 점에서 (경기부양에 소극적인) 앙겔라 메르켈 독일 총리가 옳다”면서 “서방은 틀림없이 치명적인 약물을 과다 복용하고 있는 것”이라고 결론 내렸다.
kskim@yna.co.kr
(끝)
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OPINION
The West’s Fatal Overdose
By Gabor Steingart in Washington D.C.
출처 : 슈피겔 04/03/2009
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,617224,00.html
The G-20 has agreed on plans to fight the global downturn. But its approach will only lay the foundation for the next, bigger crisis. Instead of “stability, growth, jobs,” the summit’s real slogan should have been “debt, unemployment, inflation.”
Now they’re celebrating again. An “historic compromise” had been reached, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said at the conclusion of the G-20 summit in London, while US President Barack Obama spoke of a “turning point” in the fight against the global downturn. Behind the two leaders, the summit’s motto could clearly be seen: “stability, growth, jobs.”
When the celebrations have died down, it will be easier to look at what actually happened in London with a cool eye. The summit participants took the easy way out. Their decision to pump a further $5 trillion (€3.72 trillion) into the collapsing world economy within the foreseeable future, could indeed prove to be a historical turning point — but a turning point downwards. In combating this crisis, the international community is in fact laying the foundation for the next crisis, which will be larger. It would probably have been more honest if the summit participants had written “debt, unemployment, inflation” on the wall.
The crucial questions went unanswered because they weren’t even asked. Why are we in the current situation anyway? Who or what has got us into this mess?
The search for an answer would have revealed that the failure of the markets was preceded by a failure on the part of the state. Wall Street and the banks — the greedy players of the financial industry — played an important, but not decisive, role.
The bank manager was the dealer that distributed the hot, speculation-based money throughout the nation.
But the poppy farmer sits in the White House. And during his time in office, US President George W. Bush enormously expanded the acreage under cultivation. The chief crop on his farm was the cheap dollar, which eventually flooded the entire world, artificially bloating the banks’ balance sheets, creating sham growth and causing a speculative bubble in the US real estate market. The lack of transparency in the financial markets ensured that the poison could spread all around the world.
There are — even in the modern world — two things that no private company can do on its own: wage war and print money. Both of those things, however, formed Bush’s response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Many column inches have already been devoted to Bush’s first mistake, the invasion of Baghdad. But his second error — flooding the global economy with trillions of dollars of cheap money — has barely been acknowledged.
No other president has ever printed money and expanded the money supply with such abandon as Bush. This new money — and therein lies its danger — was not backed by real value in the form of goods or services. The measure may have had the desired effect — the world economy revived, at least initially. And US consumption kept the global economy going for years. But the growth rates generated in the process were illusionary. The US had begun to hallucinate.
The addiction to new cash injections was chronic. The US had allowed itself to sink into an abject lifestyle. It sold more and more billions in new government bonds in order to preserve the appearance of a prosperous nation. To make matters worse, private households copied the example of the state. The average American now lives from hand to mouth and has 15 credit cards. The savings rate is almost zero. At the end of the Bush era, 75 percent of global savings were flowing into the US.
The president and the head of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, knew about the problem very well. Perhaps the Americans even knew just how irresponsible their actions were — at any rate, they did everything they could to hide them from the world. Since 2006, figures for the money supply — in other words, the total number of dollars in circulation — have no longer been published in the US. As a result, a statistic which is regarded by the European Central Bank as a key indicator is now treated as a state secret in the US.
Only on the basis of independent estimates can the outside world get a sense of the internal erosion of what was once the strongest currency in the world. These estimates report a steep rise in the amount of money in circulation. Since the decision to keep the figures confidential, the growth rate for the expansion of the money supply has tripled. Last year alone, the money supply increased by 17 percent. As a comparison, the money in circulation in Europe grew by a mere 5 percent during the same period.
But the change of government in Washington has not brought a return to self-restraint and solidity. On the contrary, it has led to further abandon. Barack Obama has continued the course towards greater and greater state debt — and increased the pace. One-third of his budget is no longer covered by revenues. The only things which are currently running at full production in the US are the printing presses at the Treasury.
At the summit in London, delegates talked about everything — except this issue. As a result, no attention was given to the fact that the crisis is being fought with the same instrument that caused it in the first place. The acreage for cheap dollars will now be extended once again. Only this time, the state is also acting as the dealer, so that it can personally take care of how the trillions are distributed.
The International Money Fund was authorized to double, and later triple, its assistance funds — by borrowing more. The World Bank is also being authorized to increase its borrowing. All the participating countries want to help their economies through state guarantees, which, should they be made use of, would result in a huge increase in the national debt. The US is preparing a new, debt-financed economic stimulus package. Other countries will probably follow its example.
We live in truly historic times — in that respect, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is right. The West may very well be giving itself a fatal overdose.
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Schrift:
G-20-GIPFEL
Der Goldene Schuss
Von Gabor Steingart
출처 : 슈피겔 04/03/2009
http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1518,617151,00.html
Die G-20-Staaten bekämpfen die Krise, indem sie die nächste vorbereiten: Mit neuen Billionen auf Pump soll die Weltwirtschaft angekurbelt werden. Das offizielle Gipfelmotto lautete Stabilität/Wachstum/Arbeitsplätze – das wahre müsste heißen: Verschuldung/Arbeitslosigkeit/Inflation.
Nun feiern sie sich wieder. Die Steigerung von “zufrieden” heißt “historisch”, zumindest in der Gipfel-Grammatik der deutschen Kanzlerin. Ein historischer Kompromiss sei erzielt, sagte sie zum Abschluss des G-20-Gipfels von London. Ein Wendepunkt sei erreicht, ergänzte US-Präsident Barack Obama. Hinter beiden leuchtete das Gipfelmotto: Stabilität, Wachstum, Arbeitsplätze.
Wenn der Weihrauch sich verzogen hat, wird der Blick frei werden auf das, was in London tatsächlich geschah. Die Gipfelteilnehmer sind den einfachen Weg gegangen. Ihr Beschluss, in absehbarer Zeit fünf Billionen Dollar in die kollabierende Weltwirtschaft zu pumpen, könnte sich in der Tat als historischer Wendepunkt erweisen, aber als Wendepunkt nach unten. Die Staatengemeinschaft bekämpft die Krise, indem sie die nächstgrößere vorbereitet.
Es wäre wohl ehrlicher gewesen, die Gipfelteilnehmer hätten an die Wand geschrieben: “Verschuldung, Arbeitslosigkeit, Inflation”.
Die entscheidende Frage wurde nicht beantwortet, weil sie gar nicht erst gestellt wurde: Warum stehen wir da, wo wir stehen? Wer oder was hat uns dorthin geführt?
Die Suche nach einer Antwort hätte ergeben, dass dem Marktversagen ein Staatsversagen vorausging. Wall Street und die Banken, also die Gierigen der Finanzindustrie, spielten eine wichtige, aber nicht die entscheidende Rolle. Die Bankmanager waren die Dealer, die das heiße Spekulationsgeld unters Volk brachten. Der Mohnbauer aber sitzt im Weißen Haus.
US-Präsident George W. Bush ließ die Anbaufläche in seiner Amtszeit enorm erweitern. Auf seinem Acker wuchsen die billigen Dollar, die schließlich die ganze Welt überschwemmten, die Bankbilanzen aufbliesen, Scheinwachstum erzeugten und sich kurz darauf zu einer Spekulationsblase auf dem Immobilienmarkt der USA blähten. Die fehlende Transparenz der Finanzmärkte sorgte dafür, das die giftige Frucht ihren Weg in alle Länder fand.
Es gibt auch in der modernen Welt zwei Dinge, die kann kein Privatunternehmen aus eigener Kraft tun: Krieg führen und Geld drucken. Beides aber war die Antwort von George W. Bush auf die Terroranschläge vom 11. September 2001. Über seinen ersten Fehler, den Einmarsch in Bagdad, ist viel berichtet worden. Sein zweiter Fehler aber, die Weltwirtschaft mit Unsummen von billigem Geld zu überschwemmen, wurde bisher kaum gewürdigt.
So hemmungslos wie Bush hat noch kein Präsident zuvor die Notenpresse angeschmissen und die Geldmenge ausgeweitet. Dieses neue Geld, und darin liegt seine tödliche Wirkung, ist nicht durch den Gegenwert von Waren oder Dienstleistungen gedeckt. Der Körper der Weltwirtschaft straffte sich zwar zunächst wie gewünscht. Der Konsum in den USA trieb auf Jahre die Weltwirtschaft an. Aber die derart erzeugten Wachstumsraten waren unwirklich. Die USA begannen zu halluzinieren.
Die Sucht nach immer neuen Geldinfusionen wurde chronisch. Die USA hatten sich auf ein gefährliches Lotterleben eingelassen. Sie verkauften immer neue Staatsanleihen, um den Schein einer prosperierenden Nation zu wahren. Die Privathaushalte eiferten dem Staat zu allem Überfluss nach. Der Durchschnittsamerikaner lebt mittlerweile wie eine afrikanische Großfamilie – von der Hand in den Mund. 15 Kreditkarten nennt er sein eigen. Die Sparquote betrug noch vor kurzem annähernd null. Am Ende der Ära Bush flossen 75 Prozent der weltweiten Ersparnisse in die USA.
Der Präsident und sein Notenbankchef Alan Greenspan wussten sehr wohl um die Problematik, vielleicht sogar um die Unverantwortlichkeit ihres Tuns. Sie taten zumindest alles, es vor der Welt zu verheimlichen. Seit 2006 wird die sogenannte Geldmenge M3, also jene Zahl, die angibt, wie viele Dollars im Umlauf sind, in den USA nicht mehr veröffentlicht. Was im Europa der Stabilitätskultur die entscheidende Kennziffer für die Europäische Zentralbank ist, gilt seither in den USA als geheime Kommandosache.
Nur noch aufgrund unabhängiger Schätzungen (siehe Tabelle) hat die Außenwelt ein Gefühl für die innere Aushöhlung der einst stärksten Währung der Welt. Diese Schätzungen melden einen steilen Anstieg der im Umlauf befindlichen Geldmenge. Seit dem Beschluss zur Geheimhaltung hat sich die Wachstumsrate für die Ausweitung der Geldmenge verdreifacht. Allein im vergangenen Jahr stieg die Geldmenge demnach um bis zu 17 Prozent. Zum Vergleich: Der Geldumlauf in Europa erhöhte sich im gleichen Zeitraum um nur sechs Prozent.
Der Regierungswechsel in Washington brachte nicht die Rückkehr zu Selbstbeherrschung und Solidität, sondern die weitere Enthemmung. Barack Obama setzte den Weg in den Schuldenstaat mit erhöhtem Tempo fort. Ein Drittel seines Staatshaushaltes ist durch Einnahmen nicht mehr gedeckt. Das einzige, was in den USA derzeit heiß läuft, ist die Notenpresse.
In London wurde über alles geredet, darüber nicht. So fiel nicht weiter auf, dass die Krise mit jenen Mitteln bekämpft wird, die sie verursacht hat. Die Anbaufläche für billige Dollars wird nun abermals erweitert. Nur dass diesmal der Staat auch noch als Dealer auftritt, um selbst für die Verteilung der Billionen zu sorgen. Der Internationale Weltwährungsfonds wurde ermächtigt, seine Hilfsgelder zu verdoppeln und später zu verdreifachen, auf Pump. Die Weltbank bekommt ebenfalls weitere Kreditermächtigungen. Alle Staaten wollen ihrer Wirtschaft mit Bürgschaften helfen, die im Falle der Beanspruchung die Staatsverschuldung in die Höhe treiben werden. Die USA bereiten ein neues kreditfinanziertes Konjunkturpaket vor. Andere werden wohl folgen.
Wir leben in wahrhaft historischen Zeiten, da hat die Bundeskanzlerin recht. Womöglich setzt sich der Westen gerade den goldenen Schuss.