my paper on the new Development as Derisking paradigm, or #WallStreetConsensus, or Washington Consensus updated for age of financial globalisation, is now out!
it all started here, a life time ago, when evidence of the portfolio glut chasing development assets in the Global South was not so difficult to come by
every time you read 'gap' or 'partnership' in climate/development conversations, these are code-words for derisking state
this creates safety net for holders of development assets, protecting their profits from
demand/political/climate/liquidity and currency risks.
paper develops the concept of 'green financialization': 1. Financiers as epistemic guardians of green/dirty taxonomies - greenwashing! 2. Strategies to arbitrage dirty finance regulations 3. Strategies to transfer the costs of greenwashing to the state via de‐risking
WSC is also a claim to power - @BJMbraun 's infrastructural power - that private finance wields to new areas of social life
#WallStreetConsensus in @FT today - António Guterres, secretary-general of the UN, calling for Derisking to mobilise private finance for development as a solution to the incoming debt crisis (h/t @AnnPettifor )
we shouldnt assume that ideas baked in Global North travel seamlessly to countries down South - what are local strategies for rolling out derisking state, what role for political elites?
It is no coincidence that 'Liquidity' is now at the core of global debates on debt vulnerability and debt relief
and president of @el_BID calls for derisking to mobilise private finance for development
you know we're in post Trump times when WB president calls for G20 countries to push private creditors in their jurisdictions into debt negotiations, as 'voluntary participation doesnt work'
Speaking of varieties of, and resistance to, derisking
Green(washed) conditionality/structural adjustment is coming soon to a debt distressed country near you, and it will be drawn from the Wall Street Consensus repertoire!
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Wolfgang Streeck dijo uno vez que los bancos centrales son la vanguardia del capital financiero dentro del estado, pero no predijo los aplausos tan fuerte en la lucha de clase.
el gobierno de Petro esta en una guerra distributiva con los financieros en dos frentes: 1. Corto plazo, amenaza profitabilidad: gobierno incremento el salario mínimo y se esta negando implementar austeridad fiscal 2. Estructural: re-nacionalizar pensiones privadas.
1. Los financieros quieren austeridad: inflación/deficit = tasas de interés altas y precios de bonos gubernamentales en baja, rendimientos para tenedores de bonos en baja.
Como dijo un bond trader: para los BlackRocks del mundo, crecimento bajo= rendimientos altos
Estoy en una conferencia sobre política monetaria en Colombia, donde hay una lucha abierta entre el Ministerio de Hacienda y el banco central, que ha aumentado las tasas (antes de las elecciones)
el Ministro de Hacienda está cuestionando una política monetaria uberhawkish
estamos en un mundo nuevo post liberal donde intensifican las luchas entre gobiernos confrontados con choques (de oferta) y bancos centrales independientes que, para estabilizar, solo pueden/saben subir las tasas de intereses
Jay Powell/ Fed have quietly caved to Trump. US central bank independence is now a smokescreen.
not because the Fed lowered interest rates yesterday, as Trump demanded.
Less publicised, but more important, is the Fed decision to purchase USD 40bn of Treasury bills monthly.
The Fed calls this Reserve Management Purchases but it's central bank support for government debt (and for Trump's policies more broadly), a form of monetary-fiscal coordination pervasive in the age of fiscal dominance after WW2.
How much is USD 40bn? Recall the recent hype around stablecoin issuers - the companies that Bessent claimed would strengthen US Treasury demand.
These bought USD 40 bn Treasuries over June 2024-June 2025. The Fed would buy in a month what Tether + Circle buy in a year.
Rentoul doesnt know it but his 'good grief' reflects a monetarist choice of Bank - government relationship.
popularised by Milton Fridman, monetarism wants central banks FULLY independent from democratic decisions.
before 2008, this divorce was fully operational
the monetarist divorce unravelled during the 2008 global financial crisis.
central banks HAD TO buy government bonds and stabilise the financial system because these bonds are the arteries of modern finance, without them, booom.
#WallStreetConsensus & its failure to mobilise trillions in @FT
4 things missing:
a) hegemonic dominance of 'mobilising private finance' in development/climate
b) asking why hegemony
c) mushrooming scaling up initiatives
d) do we want success?
a) Mobilising private finance remains global game - (Bridgetown, Biodiversity COP16, 4th Financing for Development conf) & national game (UK Labour gov, Brazil/Colombia/Chile decarbonisation).
*The world's most powerful political narrative that doesnt deliver
b) hegemonic not (just) because Big Finance is powerful, but postneoliberal, transformative state cant get rid of neoliberal macro - independent central bank dominating fiscal.
without macroinstitutional change- How do we pay for transformation- only one answer: private finance
when Big Finance occupies the state and takes over the social contract, nurses struggle, grandparents struggle, parents struggle, renters struggle, private equity flourishes.