PPCC: Pisitófilos Creditófagos. Verano 2023

[sudden and sharp]

https://elpais.com/economia/2023-08-20/china-se-asoma-al-final-de-su-milagro-economico-ahogada-por-el-ladrillo-y-la-deuda.html

Saludos.

Este sí estaría bien redactado...

La foto que acompaña al titular es significativa... pero el dato está en el último párrafo. (¡Quién se va a creer el primer párrafo!)

[pollo]

https://www.foxbusiness.com/fox-news-world/chinas-economy-sick-could-infect-us

China's economy is sick and could infect the US

https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proyecci%C3%B3n_(psicolog%C3%ADa)

La proyección es un mecanismo de defensa por el que el sujeto atribuye a otras personas las propias virtudes o defectos, incluso sus carencias. En el caso de la proyección negativa, esta opera en situaciones de conflicto emocional o amenaza de origen interno o externo, atribuyendo a otras personas u objetos los sentimientos, impulsos o pensamientos propios que resultan inaceptables para el sujeto. De esta forma, se «proyectan» los sentimientos, pensamientos o deseos que no terminan de aceptarse como propios porque generan angustia o ansiedad, dirigiéndolos hacia algo o alguien y atribuyéndolos totalmente a ese objeto externo. Por esta vía, la defensa psíquica logra poner estos contenidos amenazantes afuera. (...)

Yo creo simplemente que saben que va a haber hostia y están preparando al del carrito del helado para echarle la culpa.

Si la gente cree que lo que sea que pase "es por culpa de China", se encojerán de hombros y de paso tendremos un nuevo "malo".

[pollo]

https://thedeepdive.ca/new-york-city-unveils-plan-to-convert-vacant-offices-into-housing-units/

New York City Unveils Plan to Convert Vacant Offices into Housing Units

New York City has unveiled an ambitious plan to address both the surplus of vacant office spaces resulting from remote work trends and the pressing need for affordable housing. The initiative, led by Mayor Eric Adams, aims to repurpose empty office buildings into as many as 20,000 new housing units.

To facilitate this transformation, a multi-agency group comprising officials from various city departments, such as the Department of Buildings, the Department of City Planning, and the Board of Standards and Appeals, will collaborate under the newly established Office Conversions Accelerator.

Mayor Adams, along with Governor Kathy Hochul, initially sought legislative support for a broader housing program earlier this year but faced opposition from fellow Democratic lawmakers in Albany. Despite setbacks, the city has forged ahead with its localized solution to the housing crisis.

The plan focuses on incentivizing developers to convert office spaces built before 1990 into residential units, a significant expansion of the existing eligibility criteria. The proposal covers an additional 136 million square feet of office space, equivalent to Philadelphia’s total office area.

Furthermore, the initiative permits office-to-housing conversions across all residential construction-allowed zones within the city.

A notable feature of the plan is the reimagining of Midtown South, a section of Manhattan below Times Square. This area, bounded by Fifth Avenue and Eighth Avenue and spanning from 23rd Street to 40th Street, is envisioned as a vibrant mixed-use neighborhood. Under the proposal, four areas previously zoned for manufacturing half a century ago will now be open to residential development, including affordable housing units.

The transformation of vacant offices into housing units is seen as a complex and costly endeavor — with estimates putting the cost at as much as $500 per square foot. To address these challenges, city officials are exploring various avenues, including tax incentives and streamlined approval processes.

However, they acknowledge that significant progress will require state-level approvals. Mayor Adams has called on the state legislature to consider implementing a tax incentive for office conversions, particularly since a tax incentive for affordable housing construction, known as 421-a, lapsed last year without replacement.

No sé cuán viables serán este tipo de planes, pero ojalá salgan adelante. Cuanto más mejor.

[Derby]

https://www.wsj.com/economy/central-banking/why-the-era-of-historically-low-interest-rates-could-be-over-49bcdc59

Why the Era of Historically Low Interest Rates Could Be Over, By Nick Timiraos

Higher productivity and increased deficits could raise the ‘neutral’ rate of interest, limiting Fed cuts

Despite the Federal Reserve raising interest rates to a 22-year high, the economy remains surprisingly resilient, with estimates putting third-quarter growth on pace to easily exceed its 2% trend. It is one of the factors leading some economists to question whether rates will ever return to the lower levels that prevailed before 2020 even if inflation returns to the Fed’s 2% target over the next few years.

At issue is what is known as the neutral rate of interest. It is the rate at which the demand and supply of savings is in equilibrium, leading to stable economic growth and inflation.

First described by Swedish economist Knut Wicksell a century ago, neutral can’t be directly observed. Instead, economists and policy makers infer it from the behavior of the economy. If borrowing and spending are strong and inflation pressure rising, neutral must be above the current interest rate. If they are weak and inflation is receding, neutral must be lower. 

The debate over where neutral sits hasn’t been important until now. Since early 2022, soaring inflation sent the Federal Reserve racing to get interest rates well above neutral.

With inflation now falling but activity still firm, estimates of the neutral rate could take on greater importance in coming months. If neutral has gone up, that could call for higher short-term interest rates, or delay interest-rate cuts as inflation falls. It could also keep long-term bond yields, which determine rates on mortgages and corporate debt, higher for longer.

Every quarter, Fed officials project where rates will settle over the longer run, which is in effect their estimate of neutral. The median estimate declined from 4.25% in 2012 to 2.5% in 2019. After subtracting inflation of 2%, that yielded a real neutral rate (sometimes called “r*” or “r-star”) of 0.5%. In June, the median was still 0.5%.

That also happens to track a widely followed model co-developed by New York Fed President John Williams that also puts neutral at 0.5%.

But while the median hasn’t changed, some officials’ estimates have been creeping up. In June, seven of 17 officials’ estimates were above 0.5% and only three were lower. A year earlier, eight were below 0.5% and two were above.

Why the neutral rate might be rising

Analysts see three broad reasons neutral might go higher than before 2020. 

First, economic growth is now running well above Fed estimates of its long-run “potential” rate of around 2%, suggesting interest rates at their current level of 5.25% and 5.5% simply aren’t very restrictive. 

“Conceptually, if the economy is running above potential at 5.25% interest rates, then that suggests to me that the neutral rate might be higher than we’ve thought,” said Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin. He said it is too soon to come to any firm conclusions.

That said, a model devised by the Richmond Fed, which before the pandemic closely tracked Williams’s model, put the real neutral rate at 2% in the first quarter.

Second, swelling government deficits and investment in clean energy could increase the demand for savings, pushing neutral higher. Joseph Davis, chief global economist at Vanguard, estimates the real neutral rate has risen to 1.5% because of higher public debt.

Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers argued 10 years ago that slow population growth, inequality and a shortage of investment opportunities would create a glut of savings that depressed neutral. But he has recently suggested neutral has gone up because of higher deficits and the investment to transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Third, retirees in industrial economies who had been saving for retirement might now be spending those savings. Productivity-boosting investment opportunities such as artificial intelligence could push up the neutral rate.

And business investment depreciates faster nowadays and is thus less sensitive to borrowing costs, which would raise neutral. It is dominated by “computers and software, and much less office buildings, than it used to be,” Summers said during a lecture in May.

Similar debates are under way in other countries. Interest rates are more likely to settle at a level above, not below, the prepandemic norm, said Paul Beaudry, then-deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, in a June speech. He said he wanted to “help people be better prepared in the eventuality that we have entered a new era of structurally higher interest rates.”

Key Fed officials are less convinced

The debate remains far from settled.

In April, the International Monetary Fund predicted the U.S. real neutral rate would stay below 1% in coming decades because of aging populations and tepid productivity growth.

Williams said at a recent Fed conference he wouldn’t rule out surprises that raise neutral. But he expects an aging global workforce that boosts the supply of savings—and technological change that reduces the capital intensity of production—would eventually push it to, or even below, its prepandemic level. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell has in the past warned against setting policy based on unobservable estimates such as neutral, which he compared to navigating by the celestial stars.

Last December, he said the Fed would be careful about fine-tuning interest rates based on such estimates—for example, because falling inflation pushes real rates well above neutral. “I don’t see us as having a really clear and precise understanding of what the neutral rate is and what real rates are,” Powell said.

Some economists reconcile the debate by differentiating between short-run and longer-run neutral. Temporary factors such as higher savings buffers from the pandemic and reduced sensitivity to higher rates from households and businesses that locked in lower borrowing costs could demand higher rates today to slow the economy.

But as savings run out and debts have to be refinanced at higher rates in the coming years, activity could slow—consistent with a neutral rate lower than it is now.

[Derby]

https://twitter.com/Econimica/status/1693338324558369152

@Econimica Data 100% disagrees on "housing shortage". Whether looking at households to housing units or full-time employees to housing units...there is more housing per capita, more housing per HH, more housing per FT employee than ever before. The soaring prices and falling vacancy are 100% a monetary effect...only sustainable with those monetary policies remaining in place.

[asustadísimos]

[Lo que se está diciendo de China es un bulo. China tiene Capital, pero no es un país capitalista. La Trampa de la Renta Media (demasiada cabeza de ratón para ser cola de león) no se da en economías de planificación central. Además, lo que llamamos Crisis de Crecimiento es un concepto de microeconomía inaplicable en macroeconomía, donde funcionan otras cosas, como las que manejamos aquí: sistema, modelos, auge, decadencia, transición estructural, etcétera. El hipotético cambio de modelo en China —que no lo hay— no sería nada comparado con lo que está viviendo Occidente, donde se está en las 00:00 horas de Cenicienta.]


[Que los trabajadores-directivos invierten directa e indirectamente su supersalarios en inmuebles es un hecho en todo el mundo, entre otras cosas, por incompatibilidad jurídico mercantil con los intereses de las empresas que les emplean. Incluso, muchas operaciones suyas son con los propios inmuebles de las empresas donde trabajan, actuando directamente o mediante personas interpuestas (v. la verdadera esencia de las operaciones MBO, 'Management buy-out', y de las operaciones de adquisición de acciones propias, en presencia de empleados-directivos que gozan de 'stock-options' o bonus vinculados a la cotización). La cleptocracia es más común de lo que parece y hay empleados-directivos en las cárceles de todo el mundo.]

[Derby]

China's not on the verge of collapse, and people are 'too panicked': China Beige Book CEO

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UDzqjqy_Mw

[sudden and sharp]

Muy buenas intervenciones últimamente pero... ¿No deberíamos separar la esfera industrial, o de economía real de la financiera?

China y occidente podrán ser economías muy diferentes* pero en lo financiero ya tengo más dudas de esas diferencias.





---------
[ Y habría que especificar el porcentaje de apertura económica de China, en términos económicos sí, pero también en términos poblacionales o territoriales. (En China las personas están atadas a su territorio, sin libertad de traslado a cualquier otra. ]

[asustadísimos]

[La idea de que «hemos pasado de la economía de la décima a la economía del 5%» es un 'statement' interesado que dará lugar a muchos disgustos. No saben morderse la lengua porque jamás han vivido desde dentro un cambio de modelo en el capitalismo. La tan cacareada inflación es más rara que un perro verde y aún no se han desplegado todos los efectos de la política monetaria restrictiva coherente con el próximo modelo, de más elementos de planificación central y fisco y moneda fuertes. ¡Cuánto sufrimiento va a haber en la banca en la sombra, Dios mío! Tengamos cuidado con estos chicos, que están que muerden. Estamos ya a las puertas de la deflación. En este blog somos bastante buenos haciendo esta crónica. El gráfico del día:



Si esto no es deflación, que venga Dios y lo vea.]

[Derby]

https://www.elespanol.com/edicion/20230821/feijoo-presentara-pactos-rey-ganar-apoyos-quiere-ir-investidura-martes/788581159_16.html

Feijóo presentará 5 "pactos de Estado" al Rey para ganar apoyos y quiere ir a la investidura el martes 29

El líder del PP quiere someterse al debate cuanto antes, para poner en marcha el reloj de nuevas elecciones, si ningún candidato tiene mayoría suficiente.

El líder del PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, expondrá este martes al Rey Felipe VI los cinco grandes "pactos de Estado" que tiene previsto proponer a todos los partidos para ampliar sus apoyos parlamentarios, en caso de que el Monarca le encargue someterse al debate de investidura. De hecho, da casi por seguro que así lo hará a lo largo de esta semana y que podrá organizar una investidura exprés (aunque fracase) el martes que viene.

[puede ser]

El chiste del día:

https://www.alimente.elconfidencial.com/bienestar/2023-08-21/salud-mental-ancianos-finlandia-educacion_3714566/

Nuestros ancianos tienen mejor salud mental que hace 30 años: ¿por qué?
Un nuevo estudio muestra que las personas mayores han reducido los síntomas depresivos y están más satisfechas con sus vidas hoy en día en comparación con la década de 1990

No lo he leído, pero apuesto a que no se les ocurre preguntarse por qué al mismo tiempo los niños, adolescentes y jóvenes están -muchos- haciendo catacrack mental...

(Y quizá no sea sólo el tema del saqueo intergeneracional, sino también el hecho de que las nuevas generaciones estén perdiendo la capacidad de luchar por sus libertades -las reales, las de hacer lo que quieres dándote igual que todos te observen y denuncien-).

Belle and Sebastian - There's Too Much Love
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jr4930v0yJI

[el malo]

Muy buenas intervenciones últimamente pero... ¿No deberíamos separar la esfera industrial, o de economía real de la financiera?

China y occidente podrán ser economías muy diferentes* pero en lo financiero ya tengo más dudas de esas diferencias.





---------
[ Y habría que especificar el porcentaje de apertura económica de China, en términos económicos sí, pero también en términos poblacionales o territoriales. (En China las personas están atadas a su territorio, sin libertad de traslado a cualquier otra. ]

En el mundo occidental es complicado hacer esa separación. Hace mucho que la economía real está al servicio de la financiera, y no al revés.

La economía industrial depende directamente de decisiones políticas (¿planificación central encubierta?) Impuestos al CO2, estándares que son de facto imposibles de alcanzar (como la primera EURO7 en automoción) reestricciones de todo tipo a la industria y a la agricultura (a la de aquí, luego tenemos barra libre para importar de otros países sin reestricciones). Se han dinamitado los sectores primario y secundario y se nos ha relegado a una economía financiera y de servicios.

Una aclaración: en China de facto hay libertad de movimiento, por lo menos en las provincias que conozco. La gente puede mudarse libremente a una de las grandes ciudades, alquilar un piso, trabajar, y hacer vida normal. Las zonas rurales no las conozco más allá de una visita rápida.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/opinion/noticias/12413870/08/23/china-una-crisis-aun-dificil-de-calibrar.html

https://www.eleconomista.es/mercados-cotizaciones/noticias/12413908/08/23/las-grandes-inmobiliarias-chinas-pierden-100000-millones-de-euros-en-dos-anos.html

https://www.expansion.com/mercados/2023/08/22/64e3f0fc468aeba64d8b45a9.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/12413869/08/23/arcano-impulsara-la-construccion-de-500-viviendas-protegidas-en-alquiler-en-malaga-y-sevilla.html

Saludos.

[Cadavre Exquis]

https://www.eleconomista.es/vivienda-inmobiliario/noticias/12413891/08/23/inditex-se-consolida-como-el-gran-inquilino-de-los-centros-comerciales-de-lar-y-merlin.html

Saludos.