La ripresa economica elusiva

Mentre il 2011 volgeva al termine misericordioso in Europa, l'economia del continente sembrava precipitare più in profondità ogni ora. Minacciava di trascinarsi dietro il resto del mondo occidentale. La recessione globale iniziata alla fine del 2008 è durata ufficialmente per 18 mesi e si è conclusa nel giugno 2009. Gli ottimisti nel 2011 speravano che l'economia mondiale potesse evitare un "doppio calo", mentre i pessimisti pensavano che fosse già iniziata una seconda recessione.

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Molti osservatori credevano che l'Europa fosse stata abbattuta dall'istinto di fare del bene e che i sistemi di welfare sociale placcati in oro che molti paesi europei avevano inaugurato nel XIX secolo erano semplicemente inaccessibili. Il nuovo debito si accumulava sul vecchio debito, portando i tassi di interesse sui titoli di stato a livelli che i governi non potevano permettersi. Cinque paesi dell'UE hanno evitato il fallimento solo perché le loro banche creditrici hanno perdonato fino alla metà del loro debito o l'UE a 27 membri ha fornito loro un aiuto finanziario o entrambi. In genere, l'assistenza era condizionata da profondi tagli nei programmi di assistenza sociale, ma quando i governi hanno aderito a tali condizioni, i loro cittadini si sono riversati nelle strade in proteste a volte violente.

La Grecia, dove la situazione era la più grave, era quasi inadempiente per il suo enorme debito, il più grande dell'UE rispetto alle dimensioni dell'economia del paese. Si è avvicinato al dumping dall'elenco dei 7 membri della zona euro, un risultato che avrebbe potuto provocare il caos dei tassi di cambio. La Grecia è sfuggita a quell'ignominia - almeno temporaneamente - quando le sue banche creditrici, sotto la pressione del cancelliere tedesco Angela Merkel e del presidente francese. Nicolas Sarkozy, ha accettato perdite del 50% sui loro titoli greci. L'UE e il FMI hanno erogato alla Grecia 140 miliardi di dollari in nuovi prestiti di salvataggio.

As in Greece, governments fell in Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain. Italy, the third largest economy in the EU and second only to Greece in the relative size of its debt, joined the parade in November when longtime Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was replaced in office just days after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou.

The EU giants were not much better off. France, the second largest member, was thought to have an unsustainable mountain of debt. Even though traditional economic powerhouse Germany’s growth rate had outpaced that of its major EU partners and the U.S. during the previous two years, by the end of 2011, it could find no buyers at any price for some of its bonds. Overall EU growth in the third quarter of 2011 was only 0.2% greater than in the second, and many analysts judged that several EU countries had sunk back into the recessions that they had escaped just a year or two earlier.

The euro was perhaps the most visible expression of Europe’s effort at harmony after two terrible world wars in the first half of the 20th century. Failure to preserve the currency would have raised questions about the Continent’s commitment to move ahead as one instead of many. In the end, leaders of 26 of the 27 European Union member countries—all but the U.K.—supported a measure to enforce rules for fiscal discipline and to pledge additional funds to member countries whose debt threatened to swamp them. The agreement came 20 years to the day after the European Council gathered on Dec. 9, 1991, in Maastricht, Neth., to negotiate the economic and monetary union that ultimately led to the common currency.

Unlike the 2008 financial crisis, which began in the U.S. housing market, the 2011 version was distinctly European in origin and style. Its effects, however, were similar—there was precious little loan money to be had—and the consequences washed over the entire free-market world. Would-be lenders feared that even their most-reliable European borrowers would be unable to pay them back. They demanded high interest rates—if they were willing to lend at all. Without loans, companies could not secure the money they needed to cover their costs and meet their financial obligations. More pointedly in the high-unemployment economy of 2011, they could not get funds to hire new workers. At the same time, Europe could not afford to invest in the U.S., thus decreasing the funds available for growth there. Trade between Europe and North America receded.

The U.S. economy, reflecting Europe’s troubles, grew at an annual rate of only 1.8% in the third quarter of 2011 and 1.5% for the year ended in the third quarter.For the four years ended in that quarter, the U.S. economy was essentially stagnant, growing at an anemic 0.4% average annual rate. Late in November the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development slashed its estimate of U.S. growth in 2012 from 3.1% to 2%. Other forecasters made similar adjustments.

The U.S. worried that it was losing the global dominance that it had enjoyed for the more than 60 years following World War II. In 2010 China had overtaken Japan as the world’s second largest economy, and it seemed only a matter of time before its economy, growing at a reliable 8–12% a year, passed that of the U.S.

China benefited from its economic as well as its geographic distance from the Western financial powers. It was barely grazed, at least for the time being, by the debt crisis. Although Chinese manufacturing had declined slightly by year’s end as its overseas markets took a pounding, foreign direct investment continued to flourish as investors looked for more-dependable markets than those they found in the West. For the future, however, some analysts argued that China’s housing prices were too high to last, and they forecast a bursting housing bubble akin to the one that triggered the U.S. financial crisis in 2008. Poor working conditions continued to cast a shadow over China’s labour force, which in any case was not expected to keep pace with the population as a whole because the country’s long-standing one-child limit ensured that fewer young adults were entering the workforce.

India could not achieve China’s consistent pace, but its GDP growth had rebounded from a quarterly low of 5.8% during the global recession (2009) to a quarterly high of 9.4% in 2010. The World Bank, in line with other forecasters, estimated that India’s economy grew by 8% in 2011 and that it would continue to grow 8–9% for the next two years. Largely sheltered from the effects of the European debt crisis, India deregulated some industries and privatized others. Although more than half of India’s workforce was in agriculture, the large English-speaking workforce accounted for half of the country’s GDP.

For Japan the earthquake and resulting tsunami of March 11 could hardly have come at a worse time. In addition to killing more than 19,000 people, the natural disaster was an economic calamity, forcing several nuclear power plants, most notably Fukushima Daiichi, to shut down and causing rolling blackouts. Companies such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Toshiba, Sony, and Texas Instruments were compelled to shutter plants. Exports, the lifeblood of the Japanese economy, fell more than 10% from May 2010 to May 2011. According to the World Bank, Japan’s overall GDP growth of 0.1% brought it closer than any other major industrial country to negative growth in 2011. (See Special Report.)

After the 2008 financial crisis, the U.S. and the EU adopted very different strategies for keeping ahead of the soaring Asians. The Europeans, obsessed by inflation, insisted on tight budgetary discipline related to requirements for EU membership (though even the fastidious Germans did not meet the national debt limit of 60% of GDP and only occasionally held their annual deficit below the maximum 3%). Meanwhile, for the American Democratic Party, which controlled the White House and both houses of Congress in 2009 and 2010, averting a deep recession or even a depression following the 2008 financial crisis was paramount. U.S. Pres. Barack Obama pushed legislation through Congress that authorized more than $700 billion in programs designed to propel economic growth.

Whether the stimulus package had achieved that goal was still a matter of dispute in 2011, but it certainly had contributed to a U.S. deficit that reached $14 trillion during the crisis. Republicans demanded spending cuts, whereas their Democratic opponents said that the ailing economy needed more medicine. The stalemate persisted through much of 2011 and seemed likely to affect the 2012 presidential election campaign.