Interesting Readings 01March2018

First on the list is George Friedman's super wise comment

 I have written in several places about a paradox. On the one hand, if you take a snapshot of the world every 20 years or so, the reality of how the world works and what matters will have shifted dramatically compared with the previous snapshot. On the other hand, at any point in time there is a general belief that the world as it is at this moment will remain in place for a long time. It is not just the public but also experts and those who govern who tend to fail to see how transitory the present reality is. As a result – and this is what makes it important – as the geopolitical system shifts, there is a tendency to see the shifts as transitory, a temporary disruption caused by unfortunate events, until they are well entrenched, and so we tend to align ourselves with the shift far too late.

In 1900, Europe was peaceful and prosperous, and it dominated the world. It was assumed that this was a permanent reality. By 1920, Europe had torn itself apart, impoverished itself, in a bloody war. It was assumed that Germany, having been defeated, was finished. By 1940, Germany had re-emerged and was astride Europe. It was assumed that the German tide could not be resisted. By 1960, Germany was an occupied and divided country. It was assumed that war between the strongest of the occupiers, the United States and the Soviet Union, was inevitable. By 1980, there had been a war, but in Vietnam rather than Europe, and the United States had been defeated. The U.S. was now aligned with China against the Soviet Union. It was assumed that the Soviets were a permanent and dangerous enemy to both countries. By 2000, the Soviet Union no longer existed. It was assumed that the key interest of all countries was economic growth, and that traditional conflict among nations had become a marginal matter.

Twenty years is an arbitrary time period, but historically it’s about the length of a human generation. The world changes radically in each generation, but the dates can vary. The last era began in 1991 and ended in 2008. Yet even now there are many who are waiting for the world of 1991 to return. More important, only now is the full power of what started in 2008 being felt.

Scam reports

CBI arrests Karti Chidambaram in INX Media bribery case. There is no question the Chidambaram family is steeped in corruption. The question is how to get them properly. CBI has not shown dramatic or even proper application in such cases. The 2G Telecom scam findings are case in point. The accused A Raja and Kanimozhi were released for lack of any proper investigated reliable charge.

Other issues
Can good guys with guns stop bad guys with guns? Must read

Battlefields are places where one is expected to shoot down the enemy. But 1947 book Men Against Fire by Brigadier General S.L.A. Marshall, changed the existing beliefs about battlefield behaviour. The study found that in World War II only 15-20% of soldiers fired their weapons at enemy soldiers in view, even if their own lives were endangered. This was the first significant study that showed that it is not easy for a normal human being to kill another human, even in war.o

Ignored For the Nobel Prize, This Unsung Scientist Is The Father Of Fibre Optics! This is the story of Dr. Narinder Singh Kapany who first demonstrated fibre optic transmission of light in 1950s. Remarkable story.
 

Reinventing Journalism

Journalism has suffered from broken business model and there seem to be no solutions, at least as of now.Today I bumped into a story about billionaires messing with Journalism.

Billionaires gone wild is the story by Alex Pareene who is ex-Gawker a online media site shut down by Peter Thiel for its anti-Trump views by allegedly financing the legal lawsuit by Hulk Hogan. Gawker was notorious too.

World War Watch
Xi Jinping is unmaking Deng Xiaoping’s China
Mint has a great piece on Chinese constitution amendment allowing Xi Jinping to continue as President.

The effects of Xi’s longer term in office will be felt across the world. But those effects are also a function of what transpires in China in the first place. In terms of leadership style and choice of policies, Xi is more Mao Zedong than Deng Xiaoping. While Mao believed in helping revolutionary movements around the world, Deng’s approach was informed by his mantra of “hide your strength, bide your time”. Xi’s China is moving back, closer to Mao, by interfering in the domestic politics of other countries. Deng introduced political reforms so as to prevent the kind of concentration of power possible under Mao. The two-term limit on presidency was part of those reforms. Xi is now reversing Deng’s legacy on this front too.

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Interesting Readings 28 Feb 2018

Bank Crisis Watch

• The roots of the current banking crisis  Manas Chakravarty says "The roots of the current crisis in our banks lie in the great boom of 2003-08, which was then prolonged in India by a fiscal and monetary stimulus".  And that is true. When we are in phase of high growth all credit expansion seems good. It is only tested during downturns. Even now if India starts growing broadly  at 10% the bad debts will soon go away. [Rather their materiality to the balance-sheet will diminish]
• But Manas Chakravarty refuses to blame anyone further. The boards of banks - PSU and private sector, also companies too, are not functional. There a substantial level of checks and balances just dont work. Unless you have functioning boards which uphold the shareholders interest banks will continue to pander to political will. There is also substantial corruption - both at RBI and Finance Ministry- that has corrupted the banking top management of all PSU banks.
• Fault lines in the Indian banking industry - Rajrishi Singhal asks the right questions. This seems to be the first part of his analysis. Must read. One quote

One trend is unmistakeable: money is diverted out of the banking system with the active connivance of either the bank’s senior management or a couple of rogue officers. This is what makes both the PNB and BoB cases incredulous: with Reserve Bank of India (RBI) putting so much emphasis on anti-money laundering mechanisms, and with an increasing number of prosecutions against either money laundering or diversion of bank funds, it is indeed curious how both the banks persisted with lax risk mitigation and supervision frameworks.

• SBI chief Rajnish Kumar hits back at critics seeking PSB privatisation. The SBI chief is not wrong. If you look at the accounting books of most of Indian companies - Public sector units have cleaner books than many private-sector listed companies. Sometimes I really don't know what these companies are hiding in those books. PSU is more wyswyg-types.

Reforms

• T. V. Mohandas Pai and S. Krishnan complain about unfairness of taxation - View: Every year the same old story — Punish the honest, let the dishonest make merry. They are not wrong. The incentive system in India is stacked against the honest. I had earlier written about this somewhere. In India, the cost of complying with the law is quite high and punishment on breaking the law is not great and certainty of getting caught is almost zero. It is exact opposite of what it should be -  cost of complying with law should be low, punishment should be substantial and certainty of getting caught should be almost 100%.
• Two Governments, Parliament And An Expert Body - How ICAI Is More Powerful Than All Of Them, Menaka Doshi highlights how ICAI is trying to scuttle creation of "National Financial Regulatory Authority". It is a must read. Government should get cracking on this. 
• In the article Menaka Doshi highlights MCA's reply with statistics

Of the 1,972 cases taken up by the Disciplinary Committee/Board of Discipline of the ICAI, only in the matter relating to Satyam Computers have the members been permanently removed. 

Penalties of one year or more have been imposed on members in only 14 of these cases. In a majority of the cases, the members have been found as not guilty. 

Further, in majority of the cases where members have been found guilty, they have been merely reprimanded or cautioned. 

Astonishingly, the MCA noted that the ICAI has not moved even on complaints made by the Ministry. 

• Most of the financial scams in this country including tax evasion and money laundering are product of the Chartered Accountants. They are hand-in-glove with tax authorities and Finance Secretariat in leaving huge loopholes in the law. NFRA will be a significant development. Staff it with clean officers and you will start cleaning the system.
• Airlines Are Backing a Startup That Could Fix the Overbooking Problem
• They are trying to solve the problem of overbooking. In the process the article states they want to collect more data.
• This has been another pet peeve of mine. The airline booking systems, to my mind, are unnecessarily complex. The variety of factors are being unnecessarily tampered with to create opaque complexity. And whenever there is opaque policy there is fleecing of customers. I recently read an article about the different fare categories and it is complex. CNN Travel asked the question why airlines do not go flat-fee? They also have another article explaining airline pricing secrets.  
• My suggestion to get lower prices on your tickets is search for tickets in "private mode". Using cookies airlines know you are searching for specific flight and hike up the prices for the same. It is my suspicion and based on my experience.
• The confusion over rural electrification in India Dipti Jain explains the problems in rural electrification. 
• A village is considered electrified if at least 10% of its households are electrified, among other conditions. Intensive electrification, on the other hand, refers to deepening the electricity infrastructure to provide access to the remaining un-electrified houses.
• While progress is being made on the rural electrification front, proper accountability and monitoring is critical if the government is to set a date for achieving universal electrification.

Others

• Fred Wilson has an excellent post called VC Funnel where he links to another article from CB Insights.  Read the CB Insights article and Fred Wilson's comment too. The chart is quite interesting though so here it is.

• Student Loan crisis by Gaius Publius is a must read - though it is only the first part. 

• This chart is easily explained by the "bargaining power" logic I used in Subverting Capitalism and Democracy. Whenever there is an opportunity to grant loan so that the loan is difficult to be waived (student loan does not get waived by bankruptcy) and the bargaining power is favorable then you can increase the exposure. The rate of growth is increasing because lenders are keen to lend any amount (higher the better) and colleges keep hiking fees (because students have no bargaining power). The logic worked for the top courses like say Harvard MBA where pay-off from salary was quite substantial. But it hurt the lesser courses where the pay-offs were not as high. 
• Dont forget to read Yves' comment right at the start of the article.
• Next year, we may have a market crash, says eminent economist Andy Xie. I agree with some of his points and disagree with others. But worth a read.

World war watch

•  HAL carried out hot-refuleing trial on Tejas. Tejas is quite important aircraft for India. Lower cost of purchase, low operating costs and supersonic fighter will be a baseline for large capacity deployment for India. Hope it functions well.
• View: Why India should not delay its fighter jet procurement. This article argues that India will need a 5th generation fighter aircraft. India has invested in design of Su-57 but India is not happy with the engine and stealth characteristics of the aircraft. The choice is going all in for either Su-57 (we have good equation with Russia) or with F-35 one of the costliest aircraft as on date though they have now achieved lower prices with scale F35 cost is about 80million. With Su-57 having improved the engine to Saturn 2, I think Su-57 makes a better bet than F-35. It will need a super deal to tilt scales in favour of F35. (The order book for F35 is quite full). My sense is India will have to maintain both F-35 and Su-57 fleet. My vote for workhorse aircraft still goes to Gripen E and Tejas. In air, there is superiority in numbers.
• Germany's armed forces are not quite ready says Judy Dempsey in Germany: From Machine Guns to Broomsticks. The article highlights how German army is ill-equipped. Two quotes are relevant
• Back in 2014, a year after Ursula von der Leyen became defense minister, the armed forces were lacking such essential equipment that the aircraft that was supposed to take 150 German soldiers home from Afghanistan broke down. There wasn’t a back-up one available. That same year, at one stage during a NATO exercise, because they lacked machine guns, tank commanders instead used broomsticks. They had them painted black. This was not a joke.
• As for the Eurofighter and Tornado fighter jets and the CH-53 transport helicopters, they can only be used on average four months a year. They are in constant need of repair. And by the way, there’s a shortage of spare parts for maintenance. Just to add to the miserable state of the armed forces, the troops lack night-vision equipment and automatic grenade launchers.

• India’s regional power status under a cloud, Harsh Pant encourages the government to act decisively in the neighbourhood. I think his criticism of the government is valid. There are worrying trends. India must act fast.

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Interesting Readings 27 Feb 2018

One particularly weird thing I noticed today was the lack of reaction to the Xi Jinping constitutional amendment allowing him to become the defacto dictator of China. A few decades ago, I thought, US or Western nations would have made some noise about it. In fact I also tweeted about it in my reaction to FT story on the topic.

Decade ago US would have clearly expressed dissatisfaction with this development. If it was smaller country West would have cribbed. But not with China! Grabbing power never turns out well.

Power grab strengthens Xi’s influence on China economic reforms https://t.co/WGTKcooh0a

— Rahul Deodhar (@rahuldeodhar) February 27, 2018

And soon enough I got to some other articles also voicing these very concerns.

Why is the world silent about Xi Jinping's power grab? - CNN https://t.co/yEPPh0iJc5

— Rahul Deodhar (@rahuldeodhar) February 27, 2018

My issue really is that any totalitarian regime is not good for the world. And particularly so in case of China which is on its way to become the leading power in the world. In a sense, the future world leadership is not democratic. That saddens my heart. It is possible that within this lie the roots of China's downfall. 

World War Watch

I have developed some respect for the Saab Gripen E fighter. It makes more strategic and economic sense than some other fighters. Gripen is a cluster fighter - it hunts in packs. It has lower per-sortie cost than most of the aircraft. Gripen also has beyond visual range fighting capability thanks to its superb radar.

There are shortcomings - for example, its max take-off weight is about 16000kgs, comparable for F-35 is 22000Kgs. But Gripen has better combat radius of 800nm v F35's 600nm.

The Dassault Rafale is a good aircraft too. So is Eurofighter Typhoon. But these aircrafts are more than 2X the price of Gripen E/F and a costlier to operate. Gripen is the cheapest to operate. 

Saab also is not able to find many buyers for its aircrafts. At present it has order of about 100 planes and it needs to find at least 200 more. It looks like promising bulk fighter for Indian Air Force along with Tejas. Indian Air Force inventory breadth is quite exhaustive. I hope they are maintaining some sensible plan. Girpen also looks to be good option for smaller nations.

Other Things I read

Mint has a story about Uncle Pai the creator of Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle. I loved reading Amar Chitra Katha books and I am at a stage where I will be getting a complete set for my child. I hope the new team can export these stories across the world.

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Interesting Readings 26-Feb-2018

Some interesting readings for today:

Bank Fraud watch

Rotomac Pens fraud: How Vikram Kothari conned 7 banks; FIR details revealed

Business Standard details the fraud of Rotomac pens. Per the reading of FIR, it appears this is well established modus operandi. This scam uses rerouting money meant for processing export orders. There is also the usual siphoning off the loans by promoters going on. Usual suspects - chartered accountants, Bank officers and unscrupulous businessmen seem to be involved. Politicians are surely involved. I am also sure that such kind of scam cannot be undertaken without knowledge of RBI. 

If found guilty all the directors should be sent to jail. This will force the boards of other entities to be more vigilant. There is not much cost to board members for negligence.

Meanwhile Knowledge@Wharton asks What’s Behind One of the Biggest Financial Scams in History. Thankfully that is about LIBOR scam.

Here is another way people are using for money laundering. They are selling books for $555 per book. This book is entirely gibberish.

Gulzar Natrajan asks Is corporate India failing India? which is a follow up to another article about Corporate India ethics. I venture this lack of ethics and corporate failure is why India lacks formal, salaried Jobs a question posed by Alex Tabarrok and consequently does not sustainable middle class.

Currency

Vox has a fine post Money and monetary stability in Europe, 1300-1914 by K. Kıvanç Karaman, Sevket Pamuk, Seçil Yıldırım-Karaman

. Notable is the chart titled Index of the value of monetary unit, 1500-1914 (in silver/gold)

It leads to these three implications -

Our review of centuries of European experience offers a historical perspective on a number of ongoing debates in monetary economics. One debate concerns the relationship between technological and institutional innovations and monetary stability. Through the period we study, monetary systems were transformed more than once with the introductions of ledger, fiduciary, and fiat monies. These new monies were made possible by technological innovations in minting and printing and institutional innovations in banking and legal systems. Our findings suggest that these innovations by themselves did not necessarily make monetary systems more or less stable. Instead, depending on their fiscal capacity and political regime, states could employ the innovations to stabilise or destabilise the monetary units.

A related second debate is whether states can institute mechanisms to insulate monetary policy from politics. Historically, this debate has revolved around preventing discretionary monetary policy by adopting the gold standard, and currently, by central bank independence. Leaving aside the question of whether preventing discretion is desirable in the first place, historical evidence suggests that unless political preconditions are satisfied, it is not feasible. In particular, we find that neither the gold nor the earlier silver standard was a hard commitment. On both standards, states retained the prerogative to reset the silver or gold equivalent, or switch to fiat standard altogether. Consequently, when silver or gold standards kept the monetary units stable, it was ultimately because the underlying politics favoured stability.

A third debate concerns whether the state can be shut out of the monetary system altogether. Historically, the debate has centred on the feasibility of monies issued by private institutions, and currently, digital currencies. The long-run evidence suggests that the prospects for privately run monetary systems are dubious. Historically, it was private banks, goldsmiths, and moneychangers that innovated and developed new forms of money. States, however, sooner or later appropriated and monopolised these innovations, supported or banned them, and retained the control over the monetary system. Money was, and arguably will continue to be, too important to leave to private prerogatives.

 The paper is must read.

Interesting Working Papers to read 

Some more working paper recommendations by V Ananthanageswaran who recommends a few

• Can poverty be alleviated in China?, 
• Regulatory Soft Interventions in the Chinese Market: Compliance Effects and Impact on Option Market Efficiency,
• Government Affiliation and Fintech Industry: The Peer-to-Peer Lending Platforms in China
• Credit Allocation Under Economic Stimulus: Evidence from China
• Bank Competition and Innovation: Evidence from Banking Deregulation in China

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Interesting Readings 21 Feb 2018

Here are some interesting readings/listen today:

Adventures in Finance by Real Vision Episode 53 - Unfixed Income: The Bond Market Meltdown: Grant Williams and team talks to Jeffrey Snider of Alhambra Partners & Greg Weldon of “Weldon Live” about the Bond Market. The episode was recorded on Feb 8 but nevertheless it is a must listen. 

• Jeff believes current correction is similar to Oct 2014.
• Jeff believes we are trending lower on the neutral interest rate and analyst believe the cap around 3%. There is merit in the argument. Look at the chart of 10-yr rates (annotations are mine). He states this looks like "Japanification".
• Greg takes a different view - he implies that this trend is unhealthy and may reverse for a long time. 
• Greg compares this time frame to 1987.

Cash, Cat and Mouse by JP Koning discusses the cat and mouse game between tax authorities and taxpayers in the domain of retail payments.

There are two weak points in the sales process that allow cash-accepting retailers to avoid paying sales taxes or VAT. The first weak point is at the very outset of a payment. When a customer pays with cash, the person behind the till can avoid ringing up the payment. Without a record of the payment having been made, the retailer needn't pay tax. 

But even if a retailer rings up all cash payments and provides receipts, they can still avoid paying taxes. At the end of the business day, they need only doctor the cash register's data using a zapper—add on hardware or software designed for this purpose—in effect purging all or a portion of the cash payments registered during the course of business. With the only record of that day's cash payments now being the paper receipts held in customers' wallets—most of which will have been thrown away—the retailer needn't worry about the tax authority discovering the doctoring. (Erasing card based payments is much riskier for the retailer because a paper trail still exists with the card-issuer.)...

One neat trick to get retailers to provide receipts—and therefore run all transactions through the tamper-proof cash register—is to recruit the customer into the cat and mouse game as helper. Public information campaigns exhorting people to ask for receipts are one technique. But the more interesting trick is implementing a tax-receipt lottery. All invoices issued from the tamper-proof cash register come with a unique lottery number. Anyone who keeps their invoices will be able to participate in a periodic lottery. Customers thus have an incentive to ask the retailer for a receipt, obliging the retailer to run the transaction through the fiscal till. 

This is another aspect of going cashless. Can payments app help in this? I think so.

India Bank Fraud 

Banks vulnerable to hackers without online interface between CBS, SWIFT says Leslie D'Monte in Mint. While the premise is not wrong, it is not the complete picture. There are multiple control systems in any organisation. IT system is one, management control is other. Management control includes operational control and audit systems. All these systems work together. The article airs another misgiving about cybersecurity. Cybersecurity does not imply one technology -but it is a set of processes. Each part by itself does not always grant complete security but the process, taken together, should make it secure. PNB, I suspect, did not fail at that. I suspect there is involvement of few more people at PNB and also few from regulatory agencies. So I was happy when I saw this:

CBI widens PNB fraud probe to include bank’s top brass. I hope they also look into the RBI and Finance Ministry. Alternatively, Subramanium Swamy may already be on that one.

World war Watch

Turkey will attack Syria's Afrin 'in the coming days', Erdogan says. The situation in the middle east is turning bad quite quickly. Just a few months ago ISIS was cramped and it seemed that the situation may stabilise soon. Yet, this new intervention will fuel further problems. The problems of middle east arise from the random drawing of borders by the British and the Americans after the Second World War. But they have been aggravated by what I believe is Kissinger policy. Thus, the rulers and their armies (who want control), the population (who want peace and prosperity) and challengers (who are being oppressed by the rulers) have completely divergent interest resulting in continuous festering. 

The making of the Great Ocean of China writes Thimeeza Hussain former deputy ambassador of Maldives to the UN.

The Maldives, since its independence in 1965, has had an “India first” policy and leaders of both countries have held high-level exchanges on regional issues. But since Yameen took office, he has aligned with China, which has defended his authoritarian rule. The Maldives now owes about 80% of its foreign debt to China, which has been spreading its wings rapidly in South Asia and has been eyeing the atoll nation for its strategic location. China has already cosied up to Nepal by helping the latter reduce its significant trade deficit; it has invested heavily in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. China is strategically encircling India under the fancy name of the “Silk Road Project”. A part of the road will also pass through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir and may eventually help further Pakistani ambitions in Kashmir. 

Dhruva Jaishanker counters this with an article titled Reports of India’s demise as a regional power are greatly exaggerated 

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Interesting Readings 20-Feb-2018

It has become increasingly difficult to keep tabs on interesting articles I read. Almost always when I need to reference them, I am unable to find those. I started using Zotero to keep references but I also want to write some short comments on the articles so I remember what thoughts were triggered by the article. Hence I am starting this series as a personal bookmarking feature. 

Interesting readings for today

PNB/Nirav Modi/Chokshi scam coverage claims highlights.

Mint did a basic profile of Nirav Modi - Who is Nirav Modi, the man linked to $1.77 billion PNB fraud? It is short but interesting.

Tamal Bandyopadhyay answers basic questions about The anatomy of the PNB fraud. This follows a short but smart note by Deepak Shenoy titled How The 11,400 cr. Import Ponzi Scam at PNB Unfolded. Both are must read.

Once investigations start then skeletons will tumble out. Shasswati Das from Mint writes Shell firms, benami assets on the radar amid fresh raids on Nirav Modi, Choksi.  

investigating agency and the income-tax department have zeroed in on 200 shell companies—both in India and overseas—that were being used to receive funds as part of the alleged fraud, in order to create benami assets in the form of land, gold and precious stones.

I cannot believe there is only one culpable officer and one errant company (or one bunch). There must be more officers involved and surely more companies using similar modus operandi.

Bank Stability

V. Ananthnageswaran quotes IMF

Fourth and finally, I would like to quote this important paragraph from the Financial System Stability Assessment Programme for India done by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and published in December 2017: “India’s key banks appear resilient, but the system is subject to considerable vulnerabilities. Stress tests show that while the largest banks are sufficiently capitalized and profitable to withstand a deterioration in economic conditions, a group of public sector banks (PSBs) are highly vulnerable to further declines in asset quality and higher provisioning needs. Capital needs range from 0.75% of GDP in the baseline to 1.5% of GDP in the severe adverse scenario.”

The IMF added: “The authorities recently announced a recapitalization plan for the PSBs amounting to approximately 1.3% of GDP, as well as the establishment of a mechanism to seek consolidation across these banks.... This recapitalization package will effectively address the capital gap assessed in the FSAP (Financial Sector Assessment Programme) exercise even under the severe stress scenario.”

Mihir Sharma takes the attack on Government ownership in his Bloomberg Quint article State Control Has Opened India's Banks to Fraud. He is not wrong. But the next logical step in this process is not fully correct. Debashis Basu highlights it. He believes if we change ownership - i.e. sell off the banks then the problem will go away. [Behind paywall] I am all for private banking. The government needs to own just one bank - State Bank of India - rest can be privatized. The reasons for this one exception is a topic for another post. However, I am not in favour of selling banks or any PSUs at this stage. The best way is to turn it around and then sell it. The assets of people should fetch full value.

Ila Patnaik discusses some other solutions in addition to bank privatisation in her article titled Lessons from a fraud. They include improving bond market, small savings scheme, increase deposit insurance cap and narrow banking. Read the quote about narrow banking:

Fourth, if the government decides that PSBs should offer risk-free deposits above the cap on deposit insurance they should be allowed to invest only in government bonds, or, do “narrow banking”. Then the implicit sovereign guarantee could effectively turn into explicit sovereign guarantee. The business of giving loans, making decisions, figuring out risk management systems, hiring competent staff, provisioning for bad loans, creating mechanisms for accountability and punishing management when systems fail can be left to private banks. Today the taxpayer pays when PSBs fail to perform these functions properly. Narrow banking by PSBs can take this burden away from the taxpayer.

Ajay Shah, as is his wont, targets the RBI in this Business Standard artcile - First, build a capable RBI. V Ananthnageswaran counters this in his post Problem disguised as solution!

World-War watch

Building maritime capacity in South-East Asia
Article by Swee Lean Collin Koh says many important things.

What New Delhi has in South-East Asia is what Beijing has only in the past decade started doing and so far not yet accomplished in the Indian Ocean

Other things

Startups and govt. agencies are competing in digital delivery of Public services

Municipal corporations are increasingly offering through app services such as online ticketing booking and local services that has have so far been the reserve of start-ups such as UrbanClap, Quikr and Housejoy

The services that should be provided by public bodies cannot be abdicated to private players. However, public bodies may find it difficult to design the most optimum solutions to public service delivery. I prefer the PPP model here - DBOOT -or design build Operate own and transfer. 

Towards a data protection framework for India

In this article Vrinda Bhandari, Amba Kak, Smriti Parsheera, Faiza Rahman and Renuka Sane from NIPFP submit their suggestions for The Justice Srikrishna Committee developing comprehensive cross-sectoral data protection law for India.

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Revenue Deficit vs Fiscal deficit and Fiscal responsibility

"Ballooning Revenue Deficit is far more worrisome than nominal slippage in fiscal deficit" said Mythili Bhusnurmath in ET. Her views are correct. But how to curb Revenue deficit. Let us understand the terms a bit more in detail.

Revenue deficit is amount by which Revenue expenditures exceed Revenues. 

What are revenues or Revenue receipts?

Revenues can be tax or non-tax. Tax component includes share of tax of Union Government in general taxes and "cess" or specialized taxes accruing to Union Government alone. [Refer Note 1]. Non-tax revenues includes interest on loans to various entities (state governments, etc.),  profits and dividends from enterprises, duties and fines received, grants from multilateral agencies or other governments etc.

What are revenue expenditures?

Revenue expenditures includes:

1. Salaries and pension paid to government employees
2. Subsidies
3. defense expenditure (relates to national security)
4. Government procurement from stationery to vehicles to arms and ammunition for police (internal security)
5.  Expense required for running government schemes and programs
6. Interest paid on borrowings - domestic and external.
   

Fiscal Deficit is more like capital account deficit.

Capital Account Receipts side includes recovery of loans to States etc., receipts from disinvestment or privatization and borrowing (external and domestic). Capital expenditures includes investments in Public sector companies, investments in public projects, etc.

Further, accounting 101 will tell you that revenue deficit accumulates in the Fiscal side and it has to be financed through borrowing which sits on the capital account. The servicing of this borrowing is done through revenue expenditures. These twin deficits thus, are quite interlinked. Mathematically, it is true that we can reduce Fiscal deficit (FD) while Revenue Deficit (RD) remains high. But it is true only for small values of RD. But a more ideal situation is when FD is higher (though less than the 3%) and RD is zero or lower. Then, one presumes, your excess FD would be mostly because of high quality capital expenditure. This capital expenditure will yield more Revenues and thus lower RD in the future. [Refer Note 2].

The Problem

For past decade or more, reverse is true. Most of borrowing is used for revenue expenditures - i.e. payment of salaries to bureaucrats. In return, bureaucrats and government employees have stifled any possible revenue growth for citizen or companies thereby reducing the revenues. This widens the revenue deficit and pushes the system into a negative spiral.

It is clear that the present malaise is largely self-inflicted. Imposing FRBM target without first having a RD at zero or lower is a recipe for disaster. At present, government appears to throw disinvestment money after revenue expenses and that is very bad idea. It erodes the structure of the economy.

How to kickstart the positive spiral?

The government is now required to first ensure that RD is reduced to zero but using revenue receipts. That requires expansion of tax base which is impossible without taxing agriculture. Thereafter, using asset sales i.e. disinvestment or privatization route, reduce the lower quality borrowing. Most of the borrowing by the government should be directed towards investments that yield revenues in the future and thus create structural zero- revenue deficits or revenue surpluses. This is the improvement in quality of budget is what prudent observers seek.

Notes:

1. Indian federal structure implies that both center and states have power to tax and they have share in the tax. Most of the taxes are shared and go into "consolidated fund of India" for central share and "consolidated fund of the state" for state taxes.
2. Ideally, the any borrowing or loan or debt should create more revenue than expenses required to service it. To do that, borrowing must be invested in revenue boosting ventures. Companies borrow to buy new machine that can increase production. Similarly nations should invest in those assets that will increase profits for citizens and companies and thus improve tax receipts.

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Taxes and the contract of Government

Taxes got me thinking about the kind of contract we have with the government. 

[Note: The following post is a thought process - neither complete nor complete in arguments]

Are we born into a government or do we grow up and contract with the government?

If we grow up to contract with a government, the contract begins when we enter into this contract - usually when we turn 18 years old. The contract is transitory and government is what I agree in the contract to be. People, who are present, come together to surrender some of their freedoms and money in return for the collective services that government shall enable these people to have. Now by implication, these collective services are best procured for the entire group and thus more or less obligatory. Like for example, security. It is easy for a group to protect itself from predators hence animals form into groups - giving up freedom to wander anywhere. In this transaction is the kernel of democracy. The freedom to roam / wander away is not denied. It is just that when you exercise your freedom to wander, you lose your security. This give and take is missing in modern democratic contracts.

A counter-view implies that we should not let an individual cancel her contract with the government. There are humane reasons behind this. If a person wants to opt out of this contract and he becomes ill and without access to some public benefit he may die. The question before the government is whether they should let him die or use the public services to prevent his death. If you think we should use public services to prevent his death then it starts sounding like "socialize the losses and privatize the gains". Then, he should not be allowed to renege on the contract in the first place. It leads us to a situation as if we are born into a government - where the government predates us. That is a bit queer. Governments i.e. countries are supposed to be perpetual entities. They can never die. So this every present, always alive and thus omnipotent (or rather more potent that any living person) government bestows upon us some benefits for which we are to return some favors. The benefits includes everything - air we breathe, water, public services, schools etc. and favors imply taxes. Now don't you want the government to give you more benefits, more sops and more things? Then you must pay more taxes! Next 50% inheritance tax.

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2018: Images from the crystal ball

As 2017 draws to a close, it is time to peep into the crystal ball for 2018. But before that let me just quickly give a brief prelude.

What a year!

2017 was supposed to be a dramatic year. Back in 2011, from the extent and nature of QE, I expected around 2017 to be the year when the shit hits the fan. How wrong was I! In the intervening period I was caught off guard by a smallish slowdown, a central bank response that far outweighed anything we have seen and an unprecedented surge in valuations.

Asset prices have increased over this period since 2013. In 2017, they have reached their all times highs. The valuations of all the asset classes increased almost linearly. Many are more expensive than 2007. The art market has gone up substantially. Bitcoins are the new game in town creating large price changes on an almost daily basis.

Inflation, on the other hand, has been relatively benign. Not much is happening in food prices. Oil and Gold, the two special 

The dichotomy between these two is quite important. In Subverting Capitalism and thereafter on this blog I have maintained that when you pump money while watching the inflation basket, it leads to non-inflation basket asset price inflation. This relative price discrepancy gets corrected as prices can flow through two central asset classes - oil and homes. Oil is on its way to becoming irrelevant. But not homes.

In 2018

Some of the important events that are likely in 2018 seem as follows:

Home prices, however, continue to rise till they break inflation.
Home prices across the world rallied between 2003-04 till the peak in 2007-08. The rise of the home prices was at an unprecedented rate. There was a lull in 2008-2010 period. While prices crashed, the house price to median income ratio was high. Since 2010, the housing prices have started rising. The rise has been documented by IMF here and by Economist here.

So how higher can these go? Well, they will go till they break inflation on the upside. There is a condition. The prices may not go up if artificially cooled. Singapore has done it, Canada is considering it and others are monitoring the house prices. In effect, house prices are almost included in the inflation basket. When that is the case, the excess money has to move somewhere before Fed and other central banks can suck it out. Commodities - gold and oil offer such bets.

Oil touching $100 then retracing back to $40-$45. 

Not many are pricing oil beyond $70 at present. Apart from one call from Goldman, there seems to calls for high Oil prices. Oil is also becoming irrelevant. It has now been established that "peak oil" is more peak oil demand rather than peak oil supply. The decision of Saudi Aramco to go for IPO is an acknowledgement of this reality. These days, IPOs are an exit for promoters not call for investment with promoters.

Oil is surprisingly inflexible in the short term and almost surely irrelevant in the very long term. It is possible for short-term geopolitics to drive a supply squeeze to push prices up. At present geopolitics is in a stalemate. As much as Saudi Arabia likes higher oil prices, those will help Qatar and Iran too. Further, the real target of low oil prices - US Shale producers have turned out to be more resilient than anticipated. Thus quagmire will solve itself gradually. With Russia entering the picture in the Middle East, you can be sure Oil price will rise in short term. The higher oil price beneficiary group is bigger than the low Oil price beneficiary group. Higher oil price will also ease pressure on Venezuela.

At the same time, I do not foresee Oil sustain at $100/bbl. After the $100 rendezvous, oil may recede back to $40-$45 range. So at present, I would like to be long oil right all the way till $100 and then short oil right till $55.

Bitcoin
The story of 2017 is the breakout of bitcoin. Where will bitcoin go in 2018? More important than that question, what effect will bitcoin have on the main economy?

Return of Japan
2018 should be the year when Japan makes a comeback. There are a bunch of quality companies that have been stuck because of Japan's economic stalemate. I think Japanese companies will see some traction this year. Japans social re-engineering is going to be the thing to watch for. If Japanese women truly join the workforce and are allowed to operate at their potential then we could see something remarkable. It is possible that whole new segments of the economy may be created to support the working women. It will be stimulus twice over.

Europe - See-Saw?
Eurozone is basking in a bit of sunshine this winter - good news flowing all around. The French are putting their house in order with labour reforms. There is a decent amount of growth and banks are more healthy than ever before. There are some weird signs though. The Greek and Portuguese bonds seem to be too cheap. With these indicators what can go wrong?

Not much this year it appears. Europe should perform well in first half and the worries may appear only in late 2018. The ECB and SNB have bought substantial amounts of corporate bonds. This is not a great sign if you ask me. In a recent podcast, Felix Zulauf highlighted this. I was struck by his assessment impact on future of bond markets such moves are making. 

Impact on Politics
The response to the financial crisis of 2008 has left many befuddled. Mark Yusko, in his letter points to the very same issue - the actual behaviour of markets is at odds with the fundamentals. It is indeed. But aside from those issues, we must assess the other slow-moving forces this has unleashed - particularly in politics. Politics has become increasingly expensive because of this central bank policy.

That means we do not get the reform that is necessary. Thus, we have an enormous tax compliance process that is weighing the growth down. Yet, Democrats won't acknowledge that. Conversely, the Republican tax proposal does not simplify or ease that burden but complicates it even more.

What we also get are politicians who are increasingly out of touch with the citizens.

Coming War?
The combination of out-of-touch politicians, economic interests at loggerheads, economic and policy stagnation, distrust and fake news is a potent powder keg searching for a spark. My scenario for war now looks likely.

China's policy with One Belt One Road and lending-driven quasi-colonisation is also bound to create dissidence. The US and developed world will put pressure back on China by reducing demand for its factories which can service almost entire world's demand (maybe twice over) using robotics and automation. Automation, it is my belief, is the result of the prolonged low cost of capital. In that sense, China's communists will get a taste of Marx - Capital V Labour.

Add the uncoordinated US strategies in the Middle East, the fundamentalist strain of Islam and we have making of a world war. This Middle East angle de-escalated a bit after Iraqi victories against IS in Iraq and Syria. Yet, the threats continue. Iran may not be the problem area it appears now. The wildcard could come from Af-Pak area.


In Sum
We may be looking at an interesting year in 2018. 

Knowledge improves Risk Mitigation

Improved knowledge of business domain: A person who has better knowledge of the nature of risk is better placed than person without any knowledge.  What you want to know is - where are the bargaining power centres, do you understand them and who owns them and whether you can change those. Given my knowledge of pharma and allied sectors, I do not invest in pharma.

Improved knowledge of parties involved: If you know the founders well, you may be able to take higher risks than otherwise. You may also "know" competitive landscape - what they think, how they act.

Mechanisms to hedge risks are available and known: Hedging mechanisms are not always obvious. Not always "options" will solve your problem. Your knowledge must be comprehensive enough to determine what are the hedging mechanisms involved. Sometimes you can create an alternate product line to improve your bargaining power. 

With knowledge, you can better understand the risks. For you, the risks will be lower than others.

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Innovations from Big firms vs small firms and creative destruction

V Ananthnageswaran has a short blogpost titled Schumpeter and creative destruction where he made the following comment:

Public policy must be relentlessly focused on enabling firms to start reasonably ‘big’ and to be able to grow bigger. Subsistence entrepreneurship is romantic but will not move the economic growth needle much at all. It is disguised unemployment.

I think I understand what he means when he says "subsistence entrepreneurship will not move the economic needle." But here are my comments.

1. Innovation has moved to big corporations because of the "gridlock" created by these large corporations using patents. [Referring to Micheal Heller's Gridlock Economy book] It is not naturally so. So I agree firms should be able to get "reasonably big" but how big?
2. Other reason why big companies are innovating is because cost of capital spread between big and small firms has become wider with bigger firms being able to access ultra-low cost capital while smaller firms unable to match them. As readers will know I think too low interest rate over long times have led to development of automation technologies.
3. Most new innovation coming from large corporations is not disruptive in true sense. But that coming from smaller start-ups occasionally is. I refer to the scale of disruption from these corporations rather than number of such innovations.
4. Public policy should allow even smaller companies to disrupt established employers thus creating creative destruction in job market as well. How many policy makers will live with that idea when there is labor surplus remains to be tested.

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Law and Order - The missing reform

Manas Chakravarty has an article in Mint title IBC Ordinance a blow against the Promoter Raj. It talks about new Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code reform.That raises some prospects of execution problems.

I think Modi government faces lot of execution problems because it has not acted to root out corruption. Here is my solution I wrote for Moneylife. Do have a read and leave a comment.

Notes:

World Bank report on Reform in Georgia

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Tax - Analysis of Banking Transaction Tax

Arthakranti, an organisation credited with the proposal for demonetisation, had another proposal in their toolkit - Banking Transaction Tax (BTT). This BTT was part of overall economic reforms including demonetisation, etc. proposed by Arthakranti. 

You readers will know that I was not opposed to the idea of Demonetisation. Demonetisation is like first step of a process. The success of the process depends on how well the rest of the parts are executed. 

But BTT is a different beast all together. The logic of BTT is quite simple, not totally fool-proof but it is not implausible. Yet, India is too big a country to try it out. The case for BTT has to be built from many sides and none of them are in place. 

Few months ago, however, we have got the first step of that process. NIPFP released a report evaluating the arthakranti proposal. I got to know of it through a tweet by Niranjan Rajadhyakshya [ @CafeEconomics ]. I downloaded the report and read it.

The report was a good first step. The analysis was more academic and I thought they tested some arguments for and against demonetisation. NIPFP however stuck to academics as rebuttal for BTT. It was a good first effort but a college kid could have done that. 

I think to analyse BTT you must look at a feedback-looped simulation of the economy or a industry chain at least. The allowance for adjustment of behaviour cannot be tested directly without accounting for feedback loops.  Some parallel thoughts should be given to Flat tax proposals and their impact on tax compliance.

Nevertheless, it is a good read.

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Farmer suicides and loan waivers - can we solve it?

Farmer suicides have brought the problems facing the farmers to the fore. Indebtedness has been highlighted as one of the dominant problems for suicides. As a corollary, governments have taken populist turn towards loan waivers. This is not the first time the farm loans have been waived. But can we do something to make it the last?

I reviewed the research on this topic and summarised them in my paper. I found there are a lot of problems facing agriculture. To put it succinctly, Indian agriculture suffers from: i) poor productivity, ii) falling water levels, iii) expensive credit, iv) a distorted market, v) many intermediaries who increase cost but do not add much value, vi) laws that stifle private investment, vii) controlled prices, viii) poor infrastructure, and ix) inappropriate research. 

These are basically symptoms of two fundamental issues with agriculture. First, farm risk management has gone wrong. Second, there is lack of coordination between various parts of agricultural value-chain. Thus, farmers do not respond to changing prices and market dynamics pro-actively. They also bear higher costs for post-harvest coordination in the value-chain like transportation, packaging, etc. 

Farmers needed to become better at risk management. They should use futures prices at the crop planning stage itself. At harvest stage a mix of contracted sales, and spot sales to can maximise realisations. They also needed more reliable availability of inputs, of credit etc. All this meant we need information – different types and large quantum of information like futures prices, weather forecasts, demand estimations, pesticide usage guidance, seed knowledge, planting knowledge, etc. AND, this information had to be available to farmer when he/she needs it.

But information is only ONE part of the problem. Farmer also needs physical inputs to reach at his remote farm. So, fertilizers should be delivered on time. Farm insurance should approved. Seeds, pesticides should reach the farmer on time. It means the value-chain partners must be available and acting reliably consistently. It meant the value-chain participants need the farming process to be visible.

There is universal agreement about risk associated with dealing with commodities. It means despite much effort many times farmers will fail. The question is then – can they fail safely? 

The corporate world has solved this issue through use of limited liability vehicles. So can we apply that to the farmers? I believe, a limited agricultural bankruptcy mechanism should act like a safety net for farmers. However, we don’t want farmers to hide personal failures within agricultural risks. Hence, we want farmers to separate personal and agricultural assets for this purpose of limiting liability.

I think we can fix these using an information system –an ERP-like solution for agriculture to help assist the farmers. Such system will reduce the coordination costs, improve information availability and increase the scale of operation allowing formal economy to step in and help farmers. With ring-fencing of risks, low cost collaboration, timely information, we can help farmers into a positive spiral of profits-investment-productivity. I sketch out the schematic of such a system called Smart Agriculture Management System (SAMS) in my paper.

This issue is important. Please read the paper, I tried to keep it as short as possible. Please make suggestions for improvement. If you think SAMS will work then do spread the word.

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World War 3 watch 03 - The North Korean challenge

North Korea has suddenly become active. In the past few years, it has acquired missile technology, nuclear technology and is making and weaponizing missiles with nuclear warheads. Now Japan, a nation whose constitution calls for peaceful, non-aggression is developing first strike capabilities.

First, I doubt North Korea got this technology by itself. I suspect China behind the rise of North Korea. It could also be Pakistan at the prodding of China. I include Pakistan because of the noise in US circles for a radical reset with Pakistan. Ignore the reasons cited in that article for some time. It appears that Pakistan, China and Russia are forming closer ties. That is primary reason US may be considering a radical reset. In 2004, China applied for MTCR membership, but its membership was rejected due to concerns that Chinese entities continued to provide sensitive technologies to countries developing ballistic missiles, such as North Korea.

Second, China may be using North Korea as a strategic piece to test US and its intent in the Pacific, particularly closer to China. China may have used the Philippines for this purpose earlier this year. China is sea-locked and is intent on breaking that stranglehold. 

Third, it is possible US knows this. The THAAD deployment cannot be simply for North Korea. South Korea already has enough arsenal to obliterate North Korea two times over. Further, South Korean forces already possess Patriot systems for point defense and Aegis destroyers capable of stopping ballistic missiles. Huffington Post highlights a possible reason why China is wary of THAAD deployment. 

The United States and South Korea have repeatedly asserted that the deployment will be “focused solely on North Korean nuclear and ballistic threats” — not Chinese missiles. The possibility remains, however, for THAAD’s radar to be covertly switched into a longer range mode that feeds into the broader U.S. missile defense — giving Washington earlier notice of Chinese launches.

In countering the THAAD deployment to South Korea, two existing Chinese missile programs are likely contenders for accelerated development — hypersonic glide vehicles and multiple, independently targetable re-entry vehicles known as MIRVs. 

Fourth, Japan, a nation protected by the US with a full defence presence needs no protection. Yet, Japan last year inducted a pseudo-aircraft carrier, raised constitutional limitations on its armed forces and now is developing first strike capability.

This is a power game between China and US. The strategic pieces used are North Korea, South Korea and Japan. In south China sea, the US did not have a piece in play after Philipines sided with China. These developments do not bode well. But these are the facts.

From the perspective of India and Singapore, China remains a threat. Singapore has conclusively sided with the US and it is the best possible backstop against Chinese domination. India however, has not been decisively in favour of US. It may help to side with the US clearly and unequivocally. At the same time, given the US policy, both Singapore and India need to ramp up their self-defence protocols. Indian missile defence shield is completely inadequate in comparison with what Chinese are capable of. It is time to ramp up the Missile Defences.

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