rebaja de impuestos en EEUU

A pesar de tener un déficit público de 600.000 millones de dólares, se trata de poner en marcha una sustancial rebaja de impuestos, pensando en que la curva de Laffer salvará el crecimiento…

Estos han sido sus gastos y sus ingresos tributarios durante 2016:

En definitiva, con una deuda pública por encima del 100%, se la juegan a que la rebaja fiscal se vaya directa al consumo y esto genere más recaudación… Ya, pero es que deben tanto que como no sea así, tendrán problemas…(qué distintos son los gastos en España (41% del presupuesto solo a pensiones…)

Este es el plan de rebaja fiscal de Trump, según Goldman Sachs:

Still Confused About Trump's 1-Page Tax Plan? Goldman Explains It All

Since at its core, yesterday's 1-page "tax plan" was a Goldman creation - and was presented to the world by two former Goldman employees -  who better to explain what Trump had in mind than Goldman Sachs itself, which it did overnight in a far lengthier note from its chief Washington analyst Alec Phillips. 

Here is Goldman with an elaboration of the handful of bullet points contained on the much anticipated one page, extending it by nearly 600% to some 6 pages of details. Perhaps it would be prudent to just have Alec Phillips present the next iteration of Trump's tax plan: after all he , together with Jan Hatzius, appears to be the man behind it.

From Goldman

Q&A on the President’s Tax Reform Plan

+The White House announced a slightly revised set of principles for tax reform, which appear to incrementally reduce the size of the proposed tax cut compared with the President’s campaign proposal, and eliminate a few of the differences between the campaign plan and the House Republican blueprint on tax reform.

+That said, the White House proposal is still likely to reduce tax receipts by substantially more than the House proposal would. While the White House appears likely to rely on optimistic growth assumptions to offset most of the fiscal effects of the proposed tax cut, Congress will not be able to do so and must decide whether to pursue revenue-neutral tax reform or an explicit tax cut. While no decision is imminent, today’s announcement and indications of openness to a tax cut among congressional Republicans suggest that a tax cut is more likely than revenue-neutral reform.

+We expect a long road ahead for tax legislation. While we believe there is a good chance that tax legislation becomes law—in fact, market participants might be underrating the odds of tax cuts, a change from earlier this year—there may be few concrete legislative actions on tax legislation over the next couple of months for markets to react to.

Q: What did the White House announce?

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn briefed the press today (April 26) on the direction that the President will take on tax reform this year. They provided little detail, and what detail was provided was mostly similar to President Trump’s campaign proposal. That said, there were some policy changes compared with the campaign proposal that provide clues about the direction the White House might take the debate. In addition, the Administration’s thinking on the fiscal impact of the tax cut is at least slightly clearer.

Q: What has changed compared with the last tax proposal?

The proposal appears to have changed in four areas compared with the campaign proposal:

-A smaller tax cut for top income earners: The White House proposal would lower the top marginal tax rate for individuals from 39.6% to 35%, rather than the 33% proposed in the campaign.

-A smaller tax cut for middle-income individuals: The proposal now calls for a standard deduction of $24k for couples rather than $30k. This is still roughly twice as much as the current standard deduction and is identical to the House Republican proposal.

-Repeal of the state and local tax deduction: The Trump campaign proposal was unclear about which, if any, individual tax deductions might be eliminated, but the current White House proposal is more specific; the deduction for state and local taxes would be eliminated, while the deductions for mortgage interest, charitable contributions, and retirement savings would be maintained.

-A territorial tax system for business income: The campaign proposal would have repealed the deferral of tax on income earned by foreign subsidiaries of US companies, and would have instead taxed those earnings at 15% minus foreign tax credits, amounting to what would effectively be a 15% minimum tax on foreign earnings. Instead, the revised White House plan would adopt a territorial tax system, which exempts foreign earnings from US tax.

In addition to the explicit changes compared to the campaign proposal, today’s announcement was also noteworthy for two conspicuous omissions.

-No border adjustment: The plan does not endorse the border adjusted tax (BAT) that makes up part of the destination-based cash flow tax (DBCFT) system in the House Republican blueprint. In comments earlier in the day, Treasury Secretary Mnuchin indicated that the White House did not support the BAT in its current form, though he suggested that revisions might be considered. In light of substantial opposition to the BAT in the Senate, it would have been very surprising to see the White House endorse the proposal. That said, today’s announcement did not include an outright rejection of the proposal either.

-No mention of interest deductibility or capex expensing: The Trump campaign proposal would have allowed businesses the option of full expensing of capital investment in return for non-deductibility of interest expense. However, today’s outline is silent on this question. This is notable since many observers assume that the White House does not support the mandatory shift to full expensing of capex and non-deductibility of interest included in the House Republican blueprint.

Exhibit 1: The latest White House plan includes some new elements 

Source: White House, House Ways and Means Committee, Goldman Sachs Global Investment Research 

Q: What effect would these revisions have on the size of the proposed tax cut?

Overall, we figure that the changes the White House has announced would shrink the size of the proposed tax cut by more than $1 trillion over ten years compared with the prior version:

+A standard deduction of $24k for couples costs about $300bn less over ten years than the $30k standard deduction proposed in the campaign;

+A 35% instead of 33% top marginal rate for individuals probably reduces the cost of the proposal by around $400bn over 10 years;

+Repeal of the state and local tax deduction would raise around $800bn in tax revenue; and

+The shift to a territorial tax system would reduce corporate tax receipts by $200bn to $300bn more over ten years than the prior proposal.

With these changes, we expect that the overall cost of the tax plan would decline from the roughly $6 trillion cost over ten years previously estimated by the Tax Policy Center (TPC) to just under $5 trillion.

As noted above, it is unclear how the proposal would treat capital investment and interest expense, but if the proposal omitted any changes in this area, it would shrink the cost of the proposal over the next ten years by another $1.3 trillion to around $3.7 trillion, based on TPC estimates.

Q: Where does this put the proposal in comparison with the House and Senate?

It brings the White House proposal closer to where Congress is likely to be on most issues, but the rate cuts on corporate and business income are still greater than we think Congress will support. On the individual side, we believe that a 35% top marginal rate is more likely than the 33% rate that House Republicans have proposed, given fiscal constraints and the fact that a 35% rate would be a natural place to settle, as it was also the top rate prior to 2013.

The White House’s proposed $24k standard deduction and elimination of the state and local deduction bring it into line with the House Republican blueprint. While we are skeptical that the state and local tax deduction will be repealed entirely, we note that the House, Senate, and White House now all appear to be focused on limiting this benefit, suggesting that at least a limitation is becoming more likely.

On the corporate side, the inclusion of the territorial system for corporate income in the White House plan brings it in line with the House proposal as well as the position that we expect the Senate to take. However, the 15% rate that the White House proposes on corporate and pass-through business income is lower than the 20% and 25% rates, respectively, that the House proposes or that the Senate is likely to agree to. Ultimately, we expect that Congress will cut the corporate rate to perhaps 25%, and we would expect the tax rate on small business to be higher—quite possibly still aligned with the top individual tax rate.

Q: What have we learned about how the tax cut might be paid for?

Secretary Mnuchin has stated that the tax proposal would be offset through a combination of growth and various base broadening measures. We expect this to be outlined in more detail by May, when the President submits a formal budget to Congress for fiscal year 2018, including projections of revenues and deficits over the next ten years. Our preliminary expectation is that the White House will assume that the majority of the fiscal effect of the tax cut would be offset through a projection of faster GDP growth. For example, if the White House assumes a 3% growth rate over the next ten years, rather than the 1.8% average rate that CBO assumes, this would increase revenues by roughly $3.7 trillion over the ten- year period. We note that the fiscal benefits of a higher trend growth forecast are very backloaded; over half of the total revenue gain over the ten-year period would come in the final three years, so the projected deficit over the next several years would expand as a result of the tax cut, regardless of what growth assumptions one makes.

White House growth projections would have little direct effect on the legislative process in Congress, whereas the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) will use growth projections provided by the CBO as a starting point for analysis and is likely to make much more conservative estimates of the effect that tax legislation is likely to have on growth. That said, optimistic White House growth assumptions might help build political support in Congress for the eventual legislation. With apparent support for an explicit tax cut from key Republicans like Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT), momentum for a tax cut rather than revenue-neutral reform appears to be growing.

Q: Won’t Senate rules make it difficult to pass a tax cut that is not paid for?

Rules regarding the “reconciliation” process make it more difficult to pass a tax cut than to pass revenue-neutral tax reform, but we expect lawmakers to get around these obstacles. Republican leaders have made clear their intent to use the reconciliation process to pass tax legislation, since this allows the Republican majority to circumvent likely Democratic opposition in the Senate. However, the “Byrd Rule” in the Senate prohibits reconciliation legislation from increasing the deficit after the period covered by the budget resolution that governs the process, which traditionally lasts for ten years.

The most obvious way that congressional Republicans might get around this constraint is simply to allow the tax cuts to expire after ten years (i.e., by 2027). This was done in 2001 when the Bush Administration passed a large individual tax cut. However, two reasonable objections to this have been raised. First, structural reforms to the tax code could do more harm than good if they were made temporary. That said, a simple tax cut (for example, dropping the corporate rate from 35% to 25%) would not be as difficult to implement on a temporary basis, particularly since we expect that there would be a widespread belief that such a tax cut would be extended or made permanent before it expires, just as the 2001 tax cuts were for the most part.

A second, more technical, objection has also received some attention recently. The JCT has indicated that the revenue loss associated with a temporary tax cut would continue several years after it expired, because companies might postpone their use of certain tax benefits until after rates have risen and might pull forward income that would otherwise be recognized later. The JCT estimates imply that allowing a 20% corporate tax cut to expire after nine years would result roughly a $90bn revenue loss in the second decade, which would violate the Byrd Rule. However, this would become a much less important consideration if a corporate tax cut were considered as part of a larger package that also included some permanent provisions that raised revenue, considering that the House and White House proposals would already raise hundreds of billions of revenue through base broadening in the second decade, even excluding the effects of controversial proposals like border adjustment.

Q: Now that the White House has made its proposal, what happens next?

There are four important milestones coming up over the next few months:

-.The President’s Budget: The White House is expected to submit its budget proposal to Congress in mid-May. We would expect this to include some additional detail regarding tax legislation—at a minimum, it is likely to include more specifics regarding the potential effect on revenues and the deficit—as well as an a general indication of the scale of its infrastructure plan.

-.The final disposition of the health bill: House Republicans look likely to make another attempt at passing the American Health Care Act (AHCA), after announcing modifications intended to satisfy the conservative and centrist Republicans who signaled they would oppose the prior version. However, the announced revisions appear likely to increase support among conservative Republican lawmakers but they do not appear to have shifted the views of centrist Republicans nearly as much. As of this writing, consideration of the revised health bill within the next week or so appears possible but not likely unless it becomes clear there will be adequate support. Even if health legislation passes in the House, we do not expect a majority of the Senate to support the House version, and developing a bill that can pass the Senate is likely to take several weeks, at least. The upshot is that Republican leaders will soon need to decide whether they can pass a health bill in the House, or officially postpone consideration and move on to other issues, since the budget and tax process cannot move forward until they do.

-.The congressional budget resolution for FY2018: At the start of the year, Congress passed a budget resolution for FY2017, which served the sole purpose of providing instructions to the committees with jurisdiction over the Affordable Care Act (ACA) to pass health legislation using the reconciliation process. It was expected that a second resolution for FY2018 would then be passed once health legislation had been enacted, in order to provide instructions for passage of tax reform legislation. With health legislation in legislative limbo, it is unclear whether Republican leaders will pass a second budget resolution this year. However, since the instructions under the FY2017 resolution called for legislation that was roughly budget-neutral, the only way Congress can pass a meaningful tax cut would be to win bipartisan support, which seems unlikely at the moment, or to pass a new budget resolution that explicitly instructs the tax-writing committees to cut taxes.

-.Draft tax legislation released: It is difficult to predict when tax legislation might be made public in the House or the Senate, but our expectation is no earlier than June and possibly not until July. In the near term, we expect the tax-writing committees, particularly the House Ways and Means Committee, to hold hearings examining some of the key issues in its proposal, like the border-adjusted tax. Once the procedural groundwork for a committee vote has been laid, by passing a new budget resolution or re-using the instructions intended for the health bill, the committee is likely to release its proposal to the public and pass it quickly. In the Senate, the timing is even more fluid; we expect more detail from the Senate Finance Committee over the next couple of months regarding its likely approach for tax reform legislation, but a formal proposal appears to be a ways off.

The extended timeline for even releasing a draft proposal suggests that while the House could vote on tax legislation in committee before August, a vote on the House floor is less certain, and Senate passage before August looks very unlikely. This suggests that tax legislation is unlikely to become law before Q4 2017. While enactment shortly before year-end is a clear possibility, we believe it is more likely to become law in Q1 2018.

We continue to believe that tax legislation is fairly likely to become law. In fact, market sentiment regarding fiscal policy might have become too negative. This is a substantial shift from the start of the year, when sentiment among market participants took a much more positive view regarding the potential for major policy changes. However, we expect the process to continue slowly over the next couple of months, and without any clear signs of progress financial markets are apt to take a wait and see attitude toward tax reform.

Source: Goldman

Abrazos,

PD1: ¿Por qué callamos?

¿Por qué no resuena con fuerza y convicción la palabra del Evangelio, por qué guardamos los cristianos un silencio sospechoso acerca de lo que creemos, a pesar de la llamada a la “nueva evangelización”?

El evangelizador no habla porque así se lo recomienda la “prudencia”.

¿Por qué, pues, nuestro silencio? ¿Miedo, timidez? Decía san Justino que “aquellos ignorantes e incapaces de elocuencia, persuadieron por la virtud a todo el género humano”. El signo o milagro de la virtud es nuestra elocuencia. Dejemos al menos que el Señor en medio de nosotros y con nosotros realice su obra.

miedo a una desaceleración

Si no hacen nada, la economía se desacelera. Son los ciclos estúpido!!!

Vuelve el miedo a una desaceleración USA

"La anunciada Reforma Fiscal de Trump se enfría y la rentabilidad de los tipos largos en USA (ver gráficos) alcanza los niveles más bajos en la era Trump. Las previsiones de los centros más prestigiosos apuntan registros endebles de la actividad económica y la probabilidad de nuevas subidas de tipos por parte de la Fed están por debajo del 50% al mimo tiempo que sube el porcentaje a favor del mantenimiento de las tasas en los niveles actuales. Esto es lo que muestran las proyecciones. Lo nuevo es que están desajustadas respecto a los nuevos tiempos: el PIB USA, como el PIB de la mayor parte de los países denominados industrializados, ya no refleja la situación actual. No mide, entre otras cosas, el envejecimiento de la población mundial y su impacto sobre las economías. Tampoco el auge de las nuevas tecnologías. O la Represión Económica, que ha alterado totalmente el ciclo actual. También hay factores nuevos como la desigualdad o la media de los salarios en la población trabajadora ¿Hablamos del futuro de las pensiones en el mundo? Debate muy interesante, porque las cifras de hoy no se ajustan a los parámetros del pasado", me dice el CEO de una importante gestora.

Cecilia Prieto/Funds People recogía hace unos meses las siguientes impresiones sobre el porqué del no crecimiento, impresiones que son, hoy, de máxima actualidad:

Demografía

Ted Truscott, consejero delegado de Columbia Threadneedle Investments,  recuerda que tradicionalmente el crecimiento de la población y la productividad de la población en edad de trabajar han sido las principales fuentes del crecimiento económico. “Desafortunadamente, ambos están cayendo. En las economías desarrolladas, la población activa está cayendo, y aunque el crecimiento de la población de las economías emergentes sea positivo, la tasa de dicho crecimiento también está decayendo”, explica. Como consecuencia, el crecimiento total de la población mundial ha caído por debajo del 2% anualizado.

Jim Leaviss, director de renta fija minorista de M&G Investments, se fija en el envejecimiento de la población y su impacto sobre las arcas estatales: “Como los estados endeudados ya no pueden cumplir sus promesas sobre el derecho a la pensión o la edad jubilación, o bien los planes privados de pensiones y los ahorros han resultado ser inadecuados, las cohortes de población más mayores se han mantenido más tiempo en la fuerza laboral para ganar dinero. Como la salud durante la jubilación también ha mejorado, la gente mayor también ha seguido trabajando porque quiere y porque lo disfrutan, junto con aquellos que no han tenido elección”, detalla.

La consecuencia de ambas tendencias es, comenta el experto, que “la cohorte más mayor usada en los modelos demográficos no necesitan ser considerados únicamente como consumidores, y también pueden estar ejerciendo presión bajista sobre los salarios de los trabajadores más jóvenes, al competir con ellos por el trabajo”.

Tecnología

“No creo que se esté midiendo el impacto positivo de la tecnología sobre la productividad, ni que se esté midiendo adecuadamente el impacto de la tecnología sobre ciertas industrias, dando como resultado un crecimiento económico estructuralmente más bajo”, declara el consejero delegado de Columbia Threadneedle. Éste subraya que  “en términos relativos, la proporción de capital gastado en relación con el éxito financiero es menor. Cuesta mucho construir un horno de fundición de acero, pero sólo una pequeña fracción el construir una app”.   

Según Jim Leaviss, “los grandes avances de la robótica y la inteligencia artificial, junto con la caída continuada del precio de la tecnología, han llevado a que las máquinas se coman los trabajos”. El director de renta fija considera que este fenómeno es deflacionario de dos maneras: los trabajadores que compiten con los robots por un puesto de trabajo tendrán menos opciones de que se aumente su sueldo, y además provoca la caída del consumo, “pues incluso los trabajos mejor pagados van dirigidos a las máquinas. Los ordenadores no compran cosas, por lo que la demanda agregada cae”.

Desigualdad

Para Truscott, la desigualdad entre clases sociales también es una fuerza estructural que está empujando el PIB a la baja: “La gente pudiente no gasta todos sus ingresos. En general, tienden a ser ahorradores netos. En cambio, aquellos que tienen menores ingresos sí gastan, y han visto cómo los salarios se han estancado en los últimos 20 años. El problema con la economía global es que necesitamos que aquellos con menor renta disponible sean capaces de gastar y ahorrar, especialmente en una economía guiada por el consumo, como EE.UU.”.

Tipos muy bajos

El consejero delegado de Columbia Threadneedle se refiere a la situación en la que todo el mundo ahorra y nadie gasta, por lo que la economía no puede seguir creciendo. “Los tipos de interés ultra bajos fueron diseñados para generar reflación sobre los activos de riesgo e impulsar al consumidor de vuelta al gasto. El problema es que esos tipos tan bajos están causando que la gente se preocupe por la rentabilidad de sus ahorros. En vez de gastar, ahora hay más gente ahorrando”, detalla Truscott, que pone como un ejemplo extremo de esta tendencia a Japón.

Posibles soluciones

Los expertos aportan varias soluciones para atajar el déficit de crecimiento. Jim Leaviss declara que “los desafíos presupuestarios en torno a la provisión de las pensiones y de la saludo para la gente mayor siguen siendo clave, especialmente en un mundo globalizado en el que es más difícil para las naciones recaudar impuestos”.

Didier Saint- Georges, miembro del comité de inversiones de Carmignac, cree que la aplicación de tipos ultrabajos por parte de los bancos centrales sin obtener los resultados esperados ha supuesto una amenaza para la credibilidad de las instituciones monetarias. En consecuencia, “los Gobiernos están ahora más presionados para tomar el relevo con políticas presupuestarias y fiscales”.

“El crecimiento económico vuelve a ser un objetivo político de primer orden en las apretadas agendas electorales, y alimenta —bajo la presión de unas ciudadanías dejadas de lado desde hace ocho años— un llamamiento a la reactivación económica a todos los niveles”, declara el experto. Éste considera que, tanto para el mercado de la renta fija como para el de la variable, “se trataría de un cambio de paradigma decisivo tras ocho años inmersos en una tendencia unívoca, influenciada sobre todo por las acciones de los bancos centrales sobre los precios de los activos financieros”.

Desde Schroders, los economistas Keith Wade, Azad Zangana y Craig Botham afirman que “el debate sobre un movimiento hacia la política fiscal continuará” y que, aunque prevén más acciones por parte de los bancos centrales, “se puede esperar poco impacto sobre la economía real”.

Abrazos,

PD1: Las previsiones de la FED de San Luis:

The St. Louis Fed's Macroeconomic Outlook

St. Louis Fed president James Bullard recently gave this speech on the U.S. macroeconomic outlook. The key themes of his talk were:

1-The U.S. economy has converged to a low-growth, low-safe-real-interest-rate regime, a situation that is unlikely to change dramatically over the near future;

2-The Fed can afford to take a wait-and-see posture in regard to possible changes in U.S. fiscal and regulatory policies;

3-The U.S. policy rate can remain relatively low for now and that doing so is consistent with the dual mandate;

4-Now may be a good time for the FOMC to consider allowing the balance sheet to shrink in nominal terms.

What does Bullard have in mind when he speaks of a low-growth "regime?" The usual way of interpreting development dynamics is that long-run growth is more or less stable and that deviations from this stable trend represent "cyclical" mean-reverting departures from trend. And if it's "cyclical," then it's temporary--we should be forecasting reversion to the mean in the near future--like the red forecasting lines in the picture below.

This view of the world can lead to a series of embarrassing forecast errors. Since the end of the Great Recession, for example, you would have forecast several recoveries, none of which have materialized. 

But what if that's not the way growth happens? Suppose instead that growth occurs in decade-long spurts? Something like this. 

This view of the development process does not say we're presently stuck forever in a low-growth regime. It simply suggests that we have no idea when the economy will once again embark on a higher (or heaven-forbid, lower) growth regime and that in the meantime our best forecast is for continued low-growth for the foreseeable future. 

A reader suggests plotting the annualized ten-year growth rate quarter-by-quarter. Here is what it looks like:

What determines a growth regime? Government policies may play a role. Or perhaps it's just the way economies grow. There is no God-given rule which says that productivity growth must at all times proceed in a straight line. Here is the San Francisco Fed's measure of total factor productivity:

Note that the most recent productivity growth slowdown occurred well before the financial crisis. 

The notion that the economy has converged to a low-growth regime is also evident in a variety of labor market measures. The prime-age unemployment rate is essentially back to its recent historical average, for example.

Measures of prime-age employment and participation still have a way to go, but arguably not very much. 

Next, what does he have in mind when he speaks of a "low-safe-real-interest-rate regime?" Bullard associates the "safe-real-interest-rate" with the expected real rate of return on (nominally) safe U.S. treasury debt (which he labels "r-dagger"). Operationally, he uses the one-year U.S. treasury yield minus a measure of year-over-year inflation (e.g., the Dallas trimmed-mean inflation). Below I plot "r-dagger" using year-over-year PCE inflation. I also plot an hypothetical "r-star" interest rate which (as suggested by theory) should track the expected growth rate of real per capita consumption expenditure.

The (theoretical) real interest rate (as measured here by consumption growth)--the blue line--is on average high in high-growth regimes and low in low-growth regimes (the 1950s provide an exception). The r-dagger interest rate appears to move broadly with r-star (the early 1980s provide a dramatic exception).  The gap between r-star and r-dagger could be interpreted as a risk-premium (or a liquidity premium). The secular decline in r-dagger since the early 1980s reflects a number of factors. Inflation expectations fell and became anchored under Volcker. And since at least 2000, there's been an ever-expanding global demand for safe assets which are used extensively as collateral in shadow banking, as safe stores of wealth in emerging economies, and as objects that fulfill growing regulatory requirements (Dodd-Frank and Basel III). Evidently, Bullard does not believe that the appetite for these safe assets is likely to dissipate any time soon.

As for inflation, headline PCE inflation has only recently ticked back up close to the Fed's official 2% target. Nominal wage growth has also ticked up recently, but remains rather muted. The growth in real wages remains low--which is consistent with the U.S. economy operating in a low-growth regime.

Market-based measures of long-run inflation expectations appear well-anchored. Below I plot the 10-year breakeven inflation rate (expected inflation 10 years out) and the real yield on the 10-year U.S. treasury (blue line).

Given these observations, what's the rush to raise the policy rate? 

At the same time, Bullard is suggesting that it might be a good time to think about reducing the size of the Fed's balance sheet. He notes that recent FOMC policy is putting upward pressure at the short end of the yield curve (via recent policy rate increases) at the same time putting downward pressure at the long end of the yield curve (via the long-term securities purchased in the LSAP). Bullard notes that "this type of twist operation does not appear to have theoretical basis." In fact, it's not clear what policy should aim for (if anything at all) in terms of influencing the slope of the yield curve. 

Nevertheless, there are some good reasons to shrink the balance sheet (I provide a reason for keeping it large here). First, if there is indeed a shortage of safe assets, why is the Fed buying them up (replacing them with reserves that only depository institutions can access directly)? Ending the reinvestment program would release additional safe assets for the market, the effect of which would be to increase yields on safe assets (a good thing to the extent higher yields represent diminished liquidity premia.) Second, ending reinvestment (especially in MBS) would be a good move politically. One concern about ending reinvestment seems centered around the possibility of creating another "taper tantrum" event. But it seems unlikely that disruption in the bond market would occur if the policy change is communicated clearly and with plenty of advance notice. 

PD2: “Nos alejamos del amor de Dios cuando vamos hacia la búsqueda obsesiva de los bienes terrenos y de las riquezas”', Francisco. O cuando nos dedicamos exclusivamente a fardar y al postureo…

marcha atrás

Han pasado ya 100 días desde Trump y sus promesas electorales se siguen enfriando. Fracasado el recorte del Obamacare, todos los ojos están puestos en la reforma fiscal que, con tanto déficit y deudas, se antoja muy complicadito…

Trump da marcha atrás en sus promesas: una cosa es predicar y otra dar trigo

Al igual que en Europa y Latinoamérica el siglo pasado, el populismo hace uso de una llamada directa al pueblo, aunando a un líder carismático y sus seguidores en un ‘nosotros’ exclusivo contra todos los demás (‘ellos’), los enemigos: a veces los medios, otras veces las instituciones, los inmigrantes, China, Bruselas, jueces, oposición, bancos, ricos, extranjeros... Como era de esperar, la comunicación a golpe de tuit con los seguidores se ha convertido en el instrumento moderno de expresión idóneo para los líderes populistas. “El referéndum es, naturalmente, su expresión democrática favorita. El planteamiento fundacional de ‘nosotros contra ellos’ confiere al populismo su vigor combativo, dado que ilustra de forma eficaz la denominada ‘norma de la minoría’, por la que un grupo minoritario puede, gracias a su determinación, hacer que se tambaleen los cimientos de las mayorías históricamente dominantes, pero desmovilizadas”, explica Didier Saint-Georges, miembro del Comité de Inversión de Carmignac.

El problema es que, cuando llegan al poder, los líderes populistas se enfrentan a la realidad y se ven abocados a olvidarse de las promesas que les encumbraron al poder. Como reza el sabio refranero español, una cosa es predicar y otra dar trigo. Esto es lo que parece estar pasándole a Donald Trump. Entró en la Casa Blanca con un discurso claramente proteccionista y el giro que está dando está siendo de prácticamente 180 grados.

“El presidente de EE.UU. ha cambiado el tono y suena ciertamente más moderado que durante su campaña electoral. Ha dado marcha atrás en varios frentes. En primer lugar, dijo que podría nominar a la directora de la Reserva Federal, Janet Yellen, para un segundo mandato, cuando en otoño declaraba que Yellen estaba sonada y que la reemplazaría al finalizar su mandato. También revirtió su oposición al US Export-Import Bank, que financia las exportaciones estadounidenses. Los críticos de ese banco lo consideran un ejemplo de asistencialismo corporativo. Además, cambió de opinión respecto de la OTAN, y señaló que la alianza ya no está obsoleta. Finalmente, dijo que EE.UU. no definirá a China como un país que manipula su moneda, rompiendo así otra de sus promesas de campaña. Este cambio de postura podría representar un intento de persuadir a China de incrementar la presión sobre Corea del Norte para que abandone su programa nuclear”, resumen desde MFS IM.

Todo esto lleva a preguntarse… ¿podrá Trump cumplir lo prometido? El primer precedente no ha sido bueno. En marzo, la nueva administración sufría un serio revés al fracasar en su primer intento de aprobar una importante ley sobre un asunto extremadamente delicado: el Obamacare. A raíz de la falta de respaldo, un proyecto de ley republicano avalado por Trump para reformar el sistema de salud era retirado de la Cámara de Representantes. Mientras que los opositores al presidente ven este hecho como una derrota para él, ¿qué efecto podría tener sobre sus otras políticas? El equipo de Trump se centra ahora en el próximo punto de la agenda: reducir los impuestos. Según apunta Cormac Weldon, responsable de renta variable americana de Artemis, “en teoría se trata de un tema un tanto más sencillo, por lo que debería ser más fácil lograrlo. Sin embargo, el fracaso de la reforma sanitaria plantea un nuevo problema: el recorte del gasto en salud estaba destinado a financiar, en parte, la reducción de impuestos. Esto complica las cosas”, afirma.

En la gestora consideran que existe un amplio consenso dentro del Partido Republicano respecto de la necesidad de nuevas leyes en materia impositiva, pero es posible que sus ambiciones en este aspecto se vean limitadas. Y es posible que la nueva administración ya haya aprendido que el tratamiento apresurado de la legislación no es el enfoque correcto. Existe otro importante aspecto a considerar, y son las elecciones a mitad del mandato en 2018, cuando toda la Cámara de Representantes y un tercio del Senado intentarán obtener la reelección. “Los republicanos necesitan lograr la aprobación de leyes para alcanzar la reelección. Las dos promesas más importantes de su campaña fueron la reducción del gasto en salud y la bajada de impuestos. Ante su fracaso en el cumplimiento de la primera promesa, el éxito de la legislación en materia impositiva resulta crucial. Quizá la consecuencia más significativa del fracaso de la reforma sanitaria es que traslada el foco de atención a la reducción de los impuestos”.

“El Partido Republicano no desaprovechará la ola de optimismo que atraviesa al país desde la elección de Trump. El optimismo se basó fundamentalmente en la perspectiva de una reducción en los impuestos y una mayor desregulación. Trump ya ha comenzado a emitir decretos destinados a dejar sin efecto las regulaciones para restringir las emisiones de carbono. Es probable que la industria de los servicios financieros sea su próximo blanco. Para bien o para mal, estamos ante un escenario de desregulación. Con ello se beneficiarán las pequeñas empresas, y el aumento en la confianza de las empresas y los consumidores debería traducirse en un crecimiento económico más sólido”, asegura Weldon. Y este crecimiento económico más sólido podría ser lo que, al final, termine por sujetar al mercado de renta variable americano.

“Las valoraciones de la renta variable estadounidense ya no están en niveles particularmente atractivos, pero si atendemos a la historia, en el pasado las valoraciones no han sido un factor demasiado útil a la hora identificar puntos de inflexión en los mercados. El seguimiento de los cambios en la situación económica sin embargo sí ha sido un factor más importante para los inversores de renta variable a la hora de proteger sus carteras en mercados bajistas”, revelan desde J.P.Morgan AM. Para intentar identificar esos cambios en las tendencias de la economía, el Conference Board creó un índice económico compuesto por varios indicadores adelantados. A lo largo de los últimos 50 años, ha funcionado muy bien a la hora de predecir recesiones, cayendo antes de cada ralentización económica. Se trata de un índice a prueba de populismos, que también ha ayudado a advertir a los inversores sobre los mercados bajistas. “La buena noticia es que este indicador actualmente está mejorando, en lugar de dar motivos para la preocupación”.

Con una deuda pública estadounidense del 105,8% sobre el PIB, poca reforma fiscal se puede hacer…

Lo último es que está pensando, para cuadrar que la rebaja fiscal sea sostenible y no genere más deudas, es imponer un impuesto del 10% a las ganancias que obtienen las empresas de EEUU fuera del país, que son 2,6 trillones de dólares. Y esto es mucho dinero que permitiría bajar los impuestos a las personas en ese 15% que plantea… ¿Le gustará a la bolsa que le claven un 10% de impuestos a sus beneficios empresariales de fuera para tratar de incentivar más el consumo? Desde Bloomberg:

Trump's Tax Plan Said to Seek 10% Levy on Offshore Earnings

Abrazos,

PD1: Jesús nos da el mandamiento del amor: Amaos unos a otros como yo os he amado. Antes de Cristo, el amor se fundamentaba en la recompensa esperada a cambio, o en el cumplimiento de una norma impuesta. Ahora, el amor cristiano se fundamenta en Cristo. Él nos ama hasta dar la vida: ésta tendría que ser la medida del amor del cristiano. ¿Quién daría su vida por el Señor? Casi nadie. Tampoco nos lo pide salvo a muy pocos. Pero sí que empleemos toda nuestra vida en amar.

Pero, el hombre no tiene capacidad para amar así. No es simplemente fruto de un esfuerzo particular de cada uno, sino es un don de Dios. De ahí la importancia de la Eucaristía…, que tanto nos fortalece a los cristianos, nos aumenta la fe, nos da gracia, nos hace perseverantes, nos da las fuerzas para bregar, nos hace que seamos más amorosos con los demás, y muy agradecidos con el Señor.

es un problema de tamaño relativo...

Tres bloques, con muy distintas actuaciones. ¿Se mantendrá este equilibrio de fuerzas mucho tiempo más? Lo dudo, dado que tanto la UE como EEUU andan con mucha deuda pública acumulada… Y los chinos saben que su objetivo es seguir creciendo en todos los frentes…

Desde Bruegel:

Trump’s U-turn on trade with China is good news, but the EU should not be complacent

President Trump has so far been softer on China than his campaign promises predicted. This is welcome. However, the EU has a lot at stake, and should be ready to steer a tactical course between its two main trade partners.

After less than 100 days in office, President Trump has radically shifted his view on two foreign policy issues that matter a great deal to Europe: China and NATO.

Candidate Trump promised to be tough with China. In his Contract with the American Voter, describing his plan for his first 100 days in office, he promised: “I will direct the Secretary of the Treasury to label China a currency manipulator.”

But in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, published last week, President Trump changed his mind. “They’re not currency manipulators”, he said, reflecting the latest US Treasury Department’s finding in its report on foreign exchange policies of major trading partners.

Had China been designated a currency manipulator, the Treasury Department would have had to open negotiations with Beijing with the aim to change its currency and trade behaviour. In the absence of a satisfactory solution, Washington could have imposed punitive tariffs on China, which would have led to a trade war with inevitable negative consequences for the European Union and for the entire world.

The EU follows the situation very closely. China, the EU and the US are roughly of equal economic size (see Figure 1). They are also by far the three biggest economic entities in the world; together in 2016 they accounted for:

60% of global GDP;

50% of global GDP measured in purchasing power parities;

45% of global trade (excluding intra-EU trade).

Trade ties between the three entities are intense:

-The EU is the 2^nd destination of exports from both China and the US;

-The EU is the 1^st origin of imports to China and the 2^nd to the US;

-The US is the 1^st destination of exports from both China and the EU;

-The US is the 2^nd origin of imports to the EU and the 3^rd to China;

-China is the 2^nd destination of exports from the EU and the 4^th from the US;

-China is the 1^st origin of imports to both the EU and the US.

Although economists rightly dismiss bilateral trade balances for having no economic meaning whatsoever, pressure groups and politicians attach a great deal of importance to bilateral trade deficits which they tend to ascribe to unfair trade practices by the partners in surplus. Bilateral trade balances are therefore a good indicator of potential trade tensions between pairs of countries.

Bilateral trade balances (exports minus imports) are expressed as a percentage of total bilateral trade flows (exports plus imports).

Bilateral trade relations between China, the EU and the US are fairly imbalanced. In 2015,

-China ran a 30% surplus with the EU and a 60% surplus with the US;

-The EU ran a 30% deficit with China and a 20% surplus with the US;

-The US ran a 20% deficit with the EU and a 60% deficit China.

The large US trade deficit with China was certainly a key factor behind Donald Trump’s anti-China rhetoric during his victorious US presidential campaign. Although President Trump has decided to abandon his confrontational approach for the moment, partly because the US needs China to deal with the North Korean military threat, his top trade official has meanwhile made a new attack on the big trade surpluses of China and Europe in an interview with the Financial Times.

A US-China trade conflict would pose serious problems to the European Union, which would risk being caught between the two adversaries.

The EU has three reasons to side with the United States

First, its economic ties with the US are much deeper than with China. The EU exports about twice more goods and about seven times more services to the US than it does to China. The US is also a far bigger investment partner for the EU than China. In 2015, the US hosted nearly 40% of the EU’s outward FDI stocks and was home to slightly more than 40% of the EU’s inward FDI stocks; the respective shares of China were only 2 and 1%. In terms of FDI flows, however, China has become a significant partner for the EU.

Second, Europe and America have quite similar economic and political systems. Both are Western-style market economies and democracies, though Europeans clearly value social equality more than the US. China, by contrast, is an economy where the state and state-owned enterprises play a very significant role and has a political system monopolised by one party. This difference in economic systems, between the EU and the US on the one hand and China on the other, is a source of recurring trade and investment disputes between the two sides. The fact that both the EU and the US run large trade deficits with China adds to their shared interest vis-à-vis China.

Third, the political situation in the EU’s neighbourhood, both to the east and the south, raises a number of potential security and defence questions to which EU countries are currently incapable of responding without the strong participation of the United States in NATO. No doubt European leaders will have been relieved to hear President Trump change his mind last week about his campaign declaration on NATO. “I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer obsolete,” the president said during a press conference with the secretary-general of NATO in the White House. Nonetheless, European leaders will also have received loud and clear the message of President Trump: the US commitment to NATO should not be taken for granted.

But the EU has also two good reasons to move closer to China

First, European leaders have made it clear on several occasions, including in their Rome Declaration last month, that “standing for a rules-based multilateral system…promoting free and fair trade” is a matter of principle. The timing of this re-affirmation of the centrality of multilateral trade rules for the European Union was probably related to President Trump’s “America First” declaration during his inaugural speech, which raised the spectre of unilateral trade action by Washington. With the US potentially forsaking its commitment to the GATT/WTO multilateral system, the EU could feel compelled to seek the support of China, which has recently made strong declarations in support of a liberal trading regime, to uphold the principles of the rules-based multilateral trading system.

Second, as I and my co-authors have recently suggested, the EU also has an economic interest in working with China to try and discourage the United States from taking protectionist measures. For one thing, the EU also runs a trade surplus with the US and may therefore be the subject of protectionist trade measures by the US just like China would. This could be severe blow to the EU economy since the United States is its largest export customer, absorbing more than 20 percent of extra-EU shipments. In addition, regardless of whether the EU would be the subject of direct trade measures by the US, trade actions by the US against China – or for that matter against any other country – would have important indirect repercussions for the EU given its leading role in international trade and its close economic ties with China. EU firms operating in China would inevitably be collateral victims of US measures, which would provoke some form of action by the EU against the United States, possibly jointly with China and other countries. At the very least, the EU would bring complaints against the United States at the WTO, which may eventually lead to retaliatory trade measures.

What should the EU do to avoid being caught between China and the US? Five actions would be desirable:

1-The EU should remind the Trump administration that the United States has played a pivotal role in the functioning of the rules-based multilateral trading system since the creation of the GATT in 1947. It should also convey the message that the system has served well the interests of the US and its trading partners. Finally, the EU and the US should examine the possibility of relaunching the TTIP negotiations.

2-The EU should also remind China that it has benefitted a lot from its accession to the WTO in 2001. Moreover, the EU should try and convince the Chinese authorities that the time has come for China to assume its full responsibility in the strengthening of the multilateral trading system. This implies less involvement of the state in trade and investment activities. In parallel the EU and China should commit to reach an agreement on a bilateral investment treaty by 2020.

3-The EU should take an initiative – together with the United States, China and other G20 nations – to modernise the rules of the multilateral trading system. They should ask the director-general of the WTO to appoint an Eminent Persons Group tasked to make recommendations on the global trade regime and on the design of a reformed WTO.

4-The EU should seriously reflect on the desirability and feasibility of introducing a European Committee on Foreign Investment modelled after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which reviews the national security implications of foreign investments in US companies or operations. Such a body would give the EU greater leverage vis-à-vis China (and other countries) in negotiations on foreign investment.

5-Finally, the EU should make good the commitment of EU leaders in the Rome Declaration to strengthen Europe’s common security and defence “in cooperation and complementarity with the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation”. This would give the EU greater leverage vis-à-vis the United States within NATO.

Abrazos,

PD1: Los hijos no necesitan un super-padre o una super-madre, sino un padre y una madre que se quieran mucho. Esto lo dijo el Obispo Munilla y cuánta razón tiene… Nos obsesionamos con satisfacer todas las necesidades a los hijos, tantas veces son un quebradero de cabeza para muchos… Cuando es tan simple que les mostremos nuestro amor como padres, entre nosotros, que no andemos presumiendo de nada, que no andemos sermoneándoles por todo. Que les mostremos lo mucho que nos queremos como pareja, padres de ellos. Ya aprenderán a copiarnos. Este es el mejor ejemplo de todos los que queramos enseñarles…