Después de que Hugo me enlace varias veces en su post sobre el intenso Jueves 21, y mencione mi columna en el Wall Street Journal, no me queda otra que actualizar el blog tras días de sequía. Y qué mejor que actualizarlo con el artículo en el WSJ, The Truth About Spanish Austerity, que me publicaron el Lunes 18 de Junio online, y salió en papel en la versión europea del Martes 19 (motivo por el cual compré el diario ese día).
Por si acaso, aclaro que esta columna se trata de una publicación puntual, y de momento no hay visos de que se vaya a hacer algo regular. Aunque una versión traducida al español saldrá pronto a la luz, confío en que los lectores de FI no tendrán ningún problema con la lengua de Secspir.
Copio los dos primeros y últimos párrafos del artículo (que pueden leer completo en el enlace original, puesto que no está restringido):
As Spain's economic crisis deepens and bond yields hit record highs, some are claiming that austerity has failed and that it's now time to turn to fiscal stimulus-based growth policies. A couple of years of deep spending cuts have only led Spain to a severe new downturn, with an estimated GDP fall of 1.8% in 2012, according to the April edition of the IMF's World Economic Outlook survey. Keynesians point to the contractionary spiral of cutting spending, which leads to less demand and, in turn, falls in GDP and employment.
Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy recently turned to Europe for help, after assuring parliament that his government had done everything possible to bring investors' confidence back.
[...]
fiscal austerity is not a panacea. It must be served in complement with a whole set of pro-growth policies that make the institutional environment favorable to a private-sector recovery—through, for instance, stronger labor market reforms and the removal of existing barriers to entrepreneurship. Moreover, a sensible solution for the banking system, along the lines proposed recently on these pages by Juan Ramón Rallo, should be reached.
It might be the case that even with the implementation of large and well-targeted spending cuts in combination with-free market reforms, investors might continue to lack the confidence to invest, keeping Spain's economy in shambles. But Mr. Rajoy would at least have a greater right to assert that he did everything possible to fix it. And the alternative promises much worse.
