02/09/2011

How political opportunity helps dampen the economy


Today the Dutch Central Bank released its economic monitor. And that monitor warned that the good times are over. We are getting depressed again and growth will slow. See below the first signs of the downturn in dark blue:



It is quite clear to me that this time, it will be hard for politicians to blame the banks or anyone other than themselves. We know from research that bad news on financial markets and stock exchanges is affecting all the people in the public (although in the Netherlands only 1/16th is actually actively holding its own securities). And it is of course not more than fair to say that it is the clumsy and opportunistic behaviour of politicians with respect to budgets and eurocrisis that have significantly contributed to the turmoil in the market, this last half year. Add to this the fact that the politicians chose to also curtail all future economic growth by imposing taxes, buffers, liquidity traps and all that stuff onto banks.

So we are now back in the dried up markets, with depressed consumer outlooks with mainly the politicians to blame. Central banks are heavily overstepping their mandates to try and save the day but still we see no signs of true leadership in the Netherlands, Europe or the US. And somehow I have the impression that it may a take quite some time before our Dutch politicians will truly acknowledge that it was their own opportunistic behaviour that helped spark this crisis and slowdown/downturn.