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"Unless and until surplus countries recognise that this cannot continue,
no durable escape from the crisis will be achieved"

Stig som kommer från Köpingebro på Österlen och bor i Auckland, Nya Zeeland, tillhör mina trogna läsare. Som påskhälsning sände han mig en länk till en artikel som jag gärna vidarebefordrar.
När Financial Times mycket respekterade kommentator Martin Wolf i onsdags lyfte fram samma artikel fick jag bekräftat att Stig borta i Antipodien spårat upp en viktig analys som hjälp att förstå läget.

Rolf Gustavsson, kolumn SvD 19 april 2009

Is America the new Russia?
Prof Johnson argues that the refusal of powerful institutions to admit losses
– aided and abetted by a government in thrall to the “money-changers”
– may make it impossible to escape from the crisis.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times April 14 2009

Is the US Russia? The question seems provocative, if not outrageous. Yet the person asking it is Simon Johnson, former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund and a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In an article in the May issue of the Atlantic Monthly, Prof Johnson compares the hold of the “financial oligarchy” over US policy with that of business elites in emerging countries. Do such comparisons make sense? The answer is Yes, but only up to a point.

“In its depth and suddenness,” argues Prof Johnson, “the US economic and financial crisis is shockingly reminiscent of moments we have recently seen in emerging markets.” The similarity is evident: large inflows of foreign capital; torrid credit growth; excessive leverage; bubbles in asset prices, particularly property; and, finally, asset-price collapses and financial catastrophe.

Full text of Martin Wolf

What is needed is both a large increase in aggregate demand and
a shift in its distribution, away from chronic deficit countries, towards surplus ones.
Unless and until surplus countries recognise that this cannot continue,
no durable escape from the crisis will be achieved.
Martin Wolf, Financial Times March 31 2009

Full text