Trade Wars & Currencies

Michael Pettis worries about a trade war between surplus countries and deficit countries. The basis of the war is two fold.

First, the US Dollar is the unofficial world currency. In that role, it has to function as a store of value and a facilitator of international economic growth. As such the US has to bear the responsibilities. This constrains the US Government. 

Second, we can alter or manage other global currencies and its value in US Dollar terms. This comes at a significant costs but it is doable. The most popular method is through intervention by central banks. Central banks buy or sell their US Dollar holding to keep the exchange rates in check.

Problems for US

The impossible trinity applies to the dollar's case in a different manner. US government has open capital system and flexible exchange rate so technically this should be a non-issue. But there is a problem for US. The objective for managing the trinity is to manage the economy and the trinity represents tools to that effect. In the case of the current trade war with US and surplus countries, these tools contradict each other and render US policies useless. The constraints will either cause US to bailout the world or there has to be a restructuring of the global currency system.

A two-level currency system

It is clear that US dollar cannot and should not serve as a global and national currency. A rational solution that maintains the sovereign independence while serving global trade and growth needs comes from a two-level currency system I proposed earlier.

Links:

Micheal Pettis in FT

Yves Smith on Micheal Pettis

Two-level currency system - Rahul Deodhar

PS: This is the 200th post on this blog. I started the blog in 2004 with focus on companies, innovation, investments and ideas about future. Over past few years the focus has been exclusively on the crisis and its solutions. It is read by 20 people every day. Thank you for being by co-travelers.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

Pseudo Keynesianism

As a solution to the crisis, I am more inclined with Hayek approach of taking the pain quickly and all up front rather than prolonging it as Keynes recommends. However, I dispute the interpretation of Keynes by modern media and experts.

Michael Pento has an interesting article about Keynesian approach. He uses the metaphor of an obese man getting opinion from Hayek and Keynes. While Hayek advises cutting down on food, Keynes advises opposite. And there in lies my problem with interpreting Keynes in modern context. 

At a very simplified level, Keynes suggested that keeping the aggregate demand stable should be the focus of government. While this is true, I believe given the context of the situation Keynes lived in, it is not the interpretation we must derive for our times.

My interpretation of Keynes

Keynesian solution, to my mind, is about bringing certainty on the job side. At what level of income this certainty comes is, just my argument not Keynes, immaterial. So the objective of Keynesian stimulus is to create stable employment. The aim of stimulus is not to push the money through the banking system to achieve this effect, but to use a robust, loss-less mechanism to achieve this end. If the banking system is impaired, it cannot be loss-less mechanism of choice. In such cases direct government employment is better alternative.

Keynes famously argued that how you deploy this manpower is irrelevant. For all practical purposes, he argued, you may simply dig a ditch and fill it up. The real deployment of Keynesian stimulus was targeted towards infrastructure construction. The highway program is a prime example. 

In my view, Keynes would have agreed with Hayek's solution. His endeavor may have been to achieve the change without the pain involved in Hayek's solution. Whether it is possible to change without the pain is a different question.

Keynes and Hayek as alternative approach to same solution

I believe, there are two ways to solve the crisis. 

First is by using the Keynesian solution in the right context. So focus on employment rather than bailouts. Focus on flexible employment rather than entrenching unions. A misdirected Keynesian approach is very costly.

Second approach is by using Hayek's solution. Take the pain, and thereafter let the economy revive. This approach does cost less and has no future tax repercussions.

The dangerous combination
Often what results as policy makers with little grasp of Keynesian option abandon it earlier and switch to Hayek eliminating all the future tax benefits built into Hayek's solution while causing as much pain before the recovery. The Hayekian recovery also takes longer as the first round of Keynesian stimulus, in all probability, has added to mal-investments. We are exactly at this point. The first few rounds of stimuli have been hardly successful. They have or will soon result in mal investment. Where will go next?

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

The truth behind Encouraging home ownership

Here is a link I got today through Yves Smith at nakedcapitalism.com. Feds rethink policies that encourage home ownership - USATODAY.com. With the amount hubris exposed in recent months I doubt if home ownership was promoted for the sake of citizens.

Asset backed paper vs. Casino's deck of cards

A casino has as many decks of cards as it needs. The real world casino "the financial markets" do not have such access. They need each card to be backed by an "asset". Asset could be wide variety of things. It could securities or bonds which are ownership title of businesses. Assets could be the resources in stock piles or a right to use (mining) those resource like oil, coal etc. Now what if there is too much money at the hands of the too few people (mostly what I call big money - funds). These people can gamble a bit but soon the price behind one deck of cards goes through the roof. That is the time to bring in additional deck. So how can we create such real world card decks easily? Home mortgages!

If homes were exhausted, we can create MBS, CDO - more decks! Once that is done we can create default swaps on them. If those were exhausted we can create CDS on insurers of CDOs. Jolly God! here is the eternal fountain of asset paper - inexhaustible source of deck of cards!

Morality for you - profits for me!

I am surprised how economist expect the homo economicus can be expected to behave rationally for everything else except for mortgages defaults. I would rather encourage people who cannot pay to default. After all companies do it all the time and their credit rating does not get impacted.

Comments on Microsoft

John Hempton, who fabulously broke the banking solvency talked about Microsoft recently. In the third post in the series titled Microsoft – an accounting geek’s summarizes his purpose and lessons. I wanted to add some comments to this since the first post. So here it is:

1. Bundled software in India:
• India still sells laptops without the operating system. The proportion has gone down but it still exists where dominant volumes are.
• Ubuntu and Linux overall has not caught on because it is not user friendly. As it gets friendlier, expect Indians to move to Linux versions faster than Microsoft can cope with. All Microsoft needs to do is support XP. A lot of pirated Windows XP is still being used.
• Such a response is currently underway in mobile phones. I believe it makes sense it happens in mobiles first because, device capability is limited, hardware is cheap (from china) and Indians have unique needs (apparently more Indians need dual SIMs than elsewhere - in pagers we preferred the alpha-numeric ones etc.) I can't see why it cannot happen in laptops. (More about it below)
2. India Volume play suits Apple more: If you think about volumes as a driver, Apple makes much better sense. 
• We are paying $1000 for iPhones and if you see the penetration you will be amazed. If iPhone were to be available at $500 equivalent Apple would not be able to handle the sales volume. The user interface is mind-blowingly simple even my mom and dad got it right away. (They don't speak computer English). It is very intuitive. Through iPhones and iPads Apple can make a huge in-road into Indian market. They have to price it right though.
• Why I discussed about iPads is that most users do not need a laptop or a computer. They simply need a device that can connect them to the net. A phone is a little small for the purpose but a tablet is ideal. Indian government announced a tablet PC for $35 and it is pretty ok with camera and it works on Android. (It is for education institutes)
3. User friendliness is still paramount: While I worked on and loved Unix (was a programmer) but I think for regular computer usage, MacOS, Windows make lot more sense. Android is emerging as a significant alternative in tablets but it is nearly as good as windows CE. 
4. Distributed legal liabilities: Unix and its versions are popular for server side because of customizability. There is other side to the equation. Security is costly and Microsoft cannot release a lower end product without risking security issues. It is an easy legal target if it fails. So it has to put in lot of effort just to ensure base level security. Linux falls through the legal cracks as the legal liabilities are diffused. Just as small revenues amplify so do small legal claims.
5. About security: Security issues are dominant concern for Microsoft. It does not have control over where its operating system is being deployed. It does not know if clients are updating the OS or not. With emergence of Software as a service model (SAAS), Microsoft will breathe easy. I expect as SAAS starts getting prominence, MS will start unleashing its programming prowess to more beneficial use.
6. Still top institutional service provider: Microsoft juggernaut is large and has tremendous inertia backing it. The IT departments of top Microsoft clients are testing versions to be released in 2011 and 2012. Frankly, even Apple does not have that kind of sales and testing infrastructure on institution side.
7. MS as fast follower: For the consumer side, Microsoft is better characterized as a fast follower than a tech leader. It has always copied Apple and will continue to do so. (Panasonic to a Sony). There are two scenarios from here:
• Currently the environment is in flux so we cannot see Microsoft response but response will come and it will eat away a substantial share.
• The model has changed to a long-tail model. Microsoft noticed this with Zune. It came in very late once the product stabilized but that was too late for the market. So it is match step-by-step in phones. Here too it is a bit late but faster than with Zune. Eventually it will figure out.
8. It is the Microsoft game: The game Apple is playing was invented by Microsoft: 
• Microsoft dis-assembled the IT hardware and software value chain. It broke the integrated approach of IBM. Apple followed IBM model in hardware and OS and used Microsoft approach with additional software. But overall Apple is still more in IBM mode.
• Apple is breaking the mobile phone software value chain but it retain the hardware approach of IBM in phone space. In phone space it HAS to break the software value-chain. It is doing this through App architecture. That is straight into MS territory. Apple will face same issues as MS if it were as important to business community as MS. Thankfully Apple is sticking to consumer electronics side.
• Blackberry is more like thin-client server model we know. A Google-wave like protocol will break this model. My guess is Microsoft will break blackberry.
• The reason MS cannot fight easily because of legacy codes. Phones need light codes but MS codes is HUGE. But in phones and in computers MS has changed its stance to scrapping old format all together. MS will gain from it because there is so much knowledge that it has but cannot use - now all that will be possible.

Disclaimer: I am an Apple fan but I love Microsoft as well. MS Excel is probably the best product every produced. It also makes awesome mice. This is discussion about future of tech and not stock analysis of Microsoft.

Pensions are complicated

The Economist has a nice blogpost about Jobs, pensions and markets: Required reading | The Economist. Here is one important quotation:

Public sector pension funds have just followed the pattern of private sector schemes. Step one, promise employees better pension benefits in lieu of higher pay. Step two, allow older employees to retire early as a "cost-saving" measure. Both employ the economics of the never-never.

And this,

Pension funds are classic Ponzi schemes in which the benefits of retirees depend on the income generated by new employees. (This is true even of funded schemes, since they invest either in equities, a claim on the profits generated by future workers, or government bonds, a claim on their taxes.) They were thus bound to be in trouble once the demographic pattern shifted, and the next generation was no bigger than the last.

This is already a hot political issue as my US colleague notes in this post; as in Britain, attacks on public sector pensions are generally launched by the taxpayers' party (Republicans. Conservatives) and resisted by the public sector workers' party (Democrats, Labour). It will also be a legal issue. In Colorado, retirees are suing over plans to reduce the scope of their inflation protection.

The pension problem is not that straight forward. Paul Krugman posted an interesting study about public-sector and private sector wages. He points to a study by John Schmitt which concludes that after adjusting for education and age, public sector workers are not overpaid as compared to private sector employees. Wages ultimately impact pensions, so ideally pension liabilities should not be unjustly high. 

However, as the article points out, the pension scheme by design is flawed. We need other means to protect the lifestyle of the retired worker. By protect we do not absolve the worker of economic prudence, but ensure that some fixed income can be earned without having to continue rigorous work. So in the post-retirement phase the work is different. Such work opportunities must be available in the first place. Singapore uses such a concept creatively.

While, pensions scheme design may be flawed, it does not allow government to renege on its promises to older workers. I discussed earlier that changing terms of pension being equivalent to breaking contract or promises to the employees. I believe the modification of terms by government for common people is not a prudent move, particularly considering the enthusiasm with which AIG was paid.

In Sum
We do need pension reforms, but it has to be humane. Governments cannot simply cut pensions just because they cannot pay. After all didn't monarchy do it in similar way - spend and if you cannot pay kill your creditor.

Who is Rich?

The philosophical answer to the question "those who have more than they need" was always disconcerting. I never related with it. But looking at the situation of developed markets today, I have rediscovered the wisdom in the words. 

An indebted rich nation is not rich

By all counts, average American household is indebted. Those with high income but still indebted to the hilt cannot be considered rich. These households need to scale down their spending. To add to their woes, these households are facing an increasing tax burden.

Tax burden on households is based on incomes not profits
And this is a critical difference between corporates and individuals. When corporates face higher taxes, they increase their costs by investing in assets, paying higher salaries, etc. Thus, in my view taxing corporates is a better alternative than taxing individuals.

Taxing rich is better than taxing poor
Though this is obvious, rich often use corporations to park their earnings and thus get taxed lower. There should be differential rates for different income slabs - particularly at high income levels. Here the size of population is small but the value of tax collect is large.

Reference
New Yorker on Tax reform

QE-2?

Here is an awesome cartoon. Concept by yours truely and illustrated by Martin Whitmore.

Will Japanese Investment Overseas decline?

A consistent overseas investment by Japan was a critical phenomenon since the early 90s. Thanks to low interest rates at home and relatively benign economic growth outlook, Japanese were (to an extent) forced to invest overseas. 

Over the 90s Annaul Japanese overseas investment averaged $20 billion. In the first half of this decade, it inched up to about $ 30 billion. However, over the past five years it has accelerated from $50 billion to $ 100 billion in 2008. The net overseas investment reached a peak in 2008 and came off in 2009 according to recent report titled Japanese FDI: Recent Trends and Outlook Investment overseas by Japan institute of Overseas Investment.  It begets one question.

Will Japanese FDI reduces substantially or even reverses?

A lot of factors that contributed to Japanese investments have changed.

• Japanese domestic economic climate may be about to change. We are not sure whether it will recover or fall into a depression, but it is unlikely that the economy will amble along directionless in the next decade.
• The age profile and dependancy ratio has weakened over the years. At some point it will change from creating a pension and savings pool to using it. Thereafter we may see a draw on pensions and savings funds.
• There is also a higher global uncertainty to deal with. 

So what?

With about $100 billion at stake, I was about to dismiss Japanese investments as marginal. These days scams and Ponzi schemes run into trillions. But that is not true. 

• $ 100 billion is a substantially large FDI investment, it is almost size of a small country. 
• There are bound to repercussions for a capital-starved world economy. World economy is capital starved with large-scale frauds and write-offs and thus a bit more vulnerable than otherwise. The sovereign balance sheets are stretched to the breaking point.  In many countries bond vigilantes are doing their proverbial dance of death. 
• China may take up the slack with its large surplus. However, people are wary of Chinese influence.

In Sum

While it may not be earth-shattering, but changing preferences in Japanese investments is bound to have some impact on global economy. We need to understand it better.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

Elizabeth Warren - Election vs. Selection

There is a huge debate about what prevents US president Obama from nominating Dr. Elizabeth Warren, the Harvard Law professor to head the Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Recently Fortune asks the question in an article titled Why not Elizabeth Warren for BCFP? The Warren episode exposes a fundamental political problem of election vs. selection. Political parties prefer voters and population in general to "select" one candidate.

Difference between Selection and Election

Selection refers to making a choice between available alternatives. While, procedurally similar, election refers to choosing amongst ourselves. By crowding out real representatives, career politicians leave the voters with non-options. What remains can hardly be called "election". There is hardly any difference in actions, thought processes or ideas amongst competing candidates. No matter who we select, the outcome is always detrimental to the population. Since conventional mechanism is not available, we should use opportunity to put real people's representatives in a position where they can make a difference. Such opportunity came up twice in recent past. 

The emergence of Paul Volcker as a champion of prudent finance promised to be the first moment. It passed away quietly partly, I presume, because of Volcker's age and responsibility he already shouldered. He was relegated to the role of an advisor who probably no one heeds.

The impending nomination of Elizabeth Warren promises to be the second case. I must confess that I am fan of Prof. Warren and I believe she is a true champion of middle class America. In fact, I believe, her expertise should be used diversely to advantage of common people.

Politicians be warned!

During my school years I often wondered how could Marie Antoinette could be so far removed from reality to ask the people of have cake instead of bread. I am no longer surprised. I think today's politicians are further away from reality than Marie Antoinette ever was. The appointment of Dr. Warren presents the first opportunity to redeem the political apparatus. Remember the fate of Marie Antoinette at the end of the French Revolution. 

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

The crisis of middle-class America

FT, more often than not, does a better job of reporting than many other newspapers. Here is FT talking about middle class America - FT.com / Reportage - The crisis of middle-class America. The examples are well chosen. People with income twice the national median, working four jobs (between two adults) are not able to reliably meet their obligations. Some are stretched by healthcare expenses others while others are fighting through job losses. One can only imagine what happens at lower-than-median incomes.

Welcome to the new normal

One of the harsh realities economists talk about is the "new normal". It includes a lifestyle with smaller cost footprint. It means scaling back on purchases. It means no new clothes, no new cars, no computers and cameras. The middle class is not saving, it is simply adjusting to new levels and risks associated with their income. At least a third of American households are in this situation. So we can only imagine what it will do for a consumption-led GDP. The future does not look bright. 

The question of jobs

The government needs to look at the profile of population and profile of jobs available for the population. I mentioned in an earlier post that every economy has an ideal job profile based on education and skill levels of the population. America is losing those jobs that its people are qualified to do. They are losing these jobs thanks to uncompetitive currency, higher wages and benefits and possibly inflexible workforce (in education). This will cause further pain in the coming years.

Declining Wage profile

Just as economy has a job profile, similarly every job profile has an associated income profile based on global wages adjusting for productivity. The wages in US are higher, I believe, than global wages AFTER adjusting for productivity.  So the incomes for those jobs that americans have will not rise much or may even fall. It will stretch middle class households beyond redemption.

Volcker-Warren conundrum

At such times, America should call Volcker-Warren combine to lead the entire financial reform process.   The Warren appointment is being fought at the CFPA level itself so that it is easier to control the Warren-influence over the general Financial reforms process. I hope, rather pray, that Warren ultimately triumphs. She is the only hope in otherwise hopeless economic and political landscape. Same goes for Volcker, the ultimate Volcker rule is so watered down, I doubt Paul Volcker is really satisfied with it. It is time for leaders of America to stand up and be counted. Alas, there aren't any.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

Small and ineffective stimulus in 2007-2009

Paul Krugman has an blog post titled How Did We Know The Stimulus Was Too Small? He discusses three points. First shortfall was about $2 Trillion. Second, the stimulus was designed at $780 billion. Third, the multiplier that was expected to magnify the impact was not properly enabled. 

There are few points and other reasons that I have highlighted over the days:

First part of stimulus went to mending the financial system. This part is basically used in wetting the system rather than actual priming.

Second, the type of activities under stimulus determines the effectiveness of the stimulus. Some activities are better at stimulating than others. Income supporting activities are often better at stimulating than consumption driving activities. Thus the proverbial dig-a-hole-fill-that-hole Keynes stimulus had better bang for the buck than the Obama-Bush please-spend-the-tax-cut stimulus.

Third, individuals save because there is uncertainty about incomes. The only way to counter uncertainty is by creating certainty. It is OK if the level of "certain income" is lower than actual. Once there is certainty that bottom is in place, the direction of wage declines stems and even reverses.

Fourth, the choice of monetary or fiscal stimulus was available in 2007. It is still available provided you write-off the stimuli till date.

Fifth, Scott Sumner proposed that monetary and fiscal policies were acting against each other. There is an element of truth to this argument. However, predominantly the fiscal stimulus failed because it was ill-designed.

Sixth, since banking system was under threat,

• I would have created a parallel national banking system using post office infrastructure. 
• This national bank would have bought assets from the consumer (mortgage transfers) at a marked-down prices so that the balance sheet of this bank stayed healthy.
• Since we did not do this, we have a huge bailout liability and we are still not sure if banks are sound or not.

Seven, if we had designed the stimulus better and gone with a simple job-creating fiscal stimulus, we would have needed far lesser money that we needed to bailout the banks.

In Sum, there were a lot of things wrong with the stimulus. Size was just one of them.

Links

Krugman's Post "How did we know the stimulus was too small?"

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon.

Comment on Sumner's article on Reallocation to housing in 2001

Scott Sumner has an interesting article today about reallocation into housing in 2001.

1. I agree with Professor Sumner's general view that during a slump (or reallocation) the right metaphor is like a bicycle going uphill. Fed is the cyclist pedaling vigorously. But if the effort is not about a certain threshold (NGDP) the bicycle will roll backward. You argue that the effort was below the threshold. I agree with this.
2. While I understand the simplification, I am not convinced with housing vs tech. The reallocation should search for better (more investment worthy) assets. I don't think housing was "better" asset. It was chosen (I think it was deliberately chosen) as it was the only one that could absorb large volume of investments. I believe, had we not interfered, markets would have discovered alternate energy or some other investment-starved sector. 
3. Housing is wrong choice. It is a dual-good. It sometimes works as consumption good other times it is investment good. Possibly housing as a consumption good may have been a cushion. But as investment good, it was only other bubble. Subprime is not a shock but a logical conclusion of an investment good being pumped with excess investment.
4. I think there is a threshold level for money ( I use term loosely) in the economy. If total money in the system goes higher than this the system (if we let it be) creates deflation to destroy this excess. This deflation happens at the hands of those who have money invested. It happens in the rich balance sheets. The problem is it often overshoots the ideal level hence we want to control the process. In our zeal to control the process, we shift the deflation hotspot to public balance sheet or citizens balance sheets. This creates a problem of affordability. The few rich balance sheets could have afforded to deflate to a large degree but many poor balance sheets cannot deflate even to hundredth of a degree. Further, the rich balance-sheets willingly took the risk of investment while poor balance sheets were stuffed. This is the socialization of losses we talk about.

I have discussed some of these ideas in my book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy". 

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Buy my book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon.

The Problem of Regulation

The regulatory juggernaut has slowly and eventually reached the gates of wall street.

Regulation, it appears, needs to tackle three issues. First, it should clarify the parties involved. In other words, regulation clarifies attribution or ownership. Secondly, it defines the action required. Finally, it defines the timing for the action. The rest of regulation merely defines the referee and the incentive structure to encourage or prevent the actions. Any regulation without these parts is open to be hijacked or misinterpreted. 

Regulation must clearly specify the action that should or should not be taken by the participants. In most cases, regulation must be designed to rebalance the bargaining power equation. The objective is to prevent the stronger player from taking advantage of the weaker player. The consumer financial protection agency is ideally defining such actions. This part often suffers from necessary and sufficient condition dilemma.

Necessary condition and sufficient conditions are best understood through the example of fire. The existence of fuel, air (or oxygen to be specific) and a spark are necessary conditions for a fire. However existence of a fire is sufficient to prove existence of fuel, air and the spark. Regulators often go to depths defining necessary conditions but often do not define the sufficient condition. Over time, the necessary conditions increase as new special cases are discovered. It makes the regulation unwieldy and creates loopholes in the regulatory paradigm. 

However, just defining the sufficient condition leaves the law ambiguous. This is the type of ambiguity that Paul Volcker likes. However, in the wrong hands such an ambiguity corrupts the system.

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Excerpt from my book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon.

Real Estate Mortgage problem and deflation

Barry Ritholtz links to a post by Dhaval Joshi, chief strategist at RAB Capital about size of the housing mortgage debt problem. Dhaval Joshi quantifies the size of the problem. He believes the value has to drop by about $4 Trillion to revert to mean values. This is approximately 27% of annual US GDP. This size of deflation has repercussions.

In whose hands assets deflate matters

Typically, asset price increases happens at the hands of the rich. (The causality is inverse - asset price increases result in wealth.) However, where does the asset price decrease happen? The answer to this question determines the power of the corresponding economic slowdown. 

When housing asset prices declines, the asset is usually at the hands of common person and the downside impact of price decline hits the common person's financials. In that context, the current crisis was safer (we may say most crises are). In this crisis, we can argue, a dotted line ownership of the assets, through MBS and related derivatives, was in the hands of the financial institution. The devaluation of assets, thus, was happening at the hands of the rich. (It was also happening at the hands of the poor is incidental for what I am saying).

I contend that bailouts are causing a change of hands. Through bailouts, the burden was passed from financial institutions to the tax payer who is the common person. I think the bailout may have doubled the burden on the US tax payer. Can we say, US tax payer will effectively bear a burden of nearly $6 trillion?

In this context my public bank proposal seems more effective
If the government had set up a public bank to buy back mortgages from current banks, we may have avoided twin problem. I had proposed that the bailout money be used to create a public bank that will buy existing mortgages from the home-owners allowing them to reduce their debt while pushing money in proportion to asset quality. This solution appears more favorable to me now. First, the large burden of bailout would not rest on tax payers. It would have gone to other investors when the bank is finally privatized. Second, it would put a bottom on the home prices and thus not allow household financial to deteriorate drastically.

Given the options on the table, even now this looks better.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon.

Healthcare and Pension - Unkept Promises?

The US deficit situation is dire. The option proposed is a drastic cut in healthcare and pension. Aside from the economic imperative, we need to ask if it is fair.

It was an unfair promise

One can say that American workers (including knowledge workers) overestimate their contribution, at least compared to the workers (note-1) globally. On the flip side, we can say that the wages the world over are depressed.  In whatever terms, option of cheaper workforce existed. Prior to the tech boom, such a workforce was not accessible (note -2). Thus the dependance on American workforce was higher which reflected in the wages and benefits. We may conclude that on the whole, American workers were promised higher benefits in terms of healthcare and pensions.

But it was a promise nevertheless

But whatever the promise was, the benefits were promised to the workforce. It gave the population a feeling of comfort about their future. It is possible that this comfort allowed them to spend more than otherwise acceptable. To renege on this commitment can be viewed, to a large extent, as a betrayal of the population.

On the other side, I cannot see why the ratings agencies cannot consider this as a default? At the very least it is restructuring and definitely not a behaviour fitting a AAA institution. The problem, I think, is how a government and its people are perceived. The sovereign ratings refer the ratings of the government. Can we think of government as different from its people? In spirit of the political set up, no. But reality suggests differently. 

Political setup is far removed from the general population

The political establishment is no longer a true representative of the general population. There has been a systematic undermining of legitimate political rights of the general population as I argue in my book. That we are discussing openly laws or portions of laws being thwarted by big institution is a disgusting reality. Just today, Barry Ritholtz highlights on the Times covers about lobbying efforts.

In such a scenario, is it fair that government should be seen as acting in connivance with the general population? I don't think so. This does turn many assumptions about "investment grade" upside down. Even then, I do not see investors discussing these issues.

Worse, the population is too naive to understand

The final straw is the reluctance of the population to understand. As if it is in a deep slumber, the general population does nothing! To a certain extent, they deserve it. 

Notes

1. For the purpose of the discussion we adjust for productivity - implying we are comparing workers with similar productivity level.
2. The tech boom combined with globalisation enabled better access to such cheaper workforce option. It is one possible causes that may have resulted in wage stagnation in US.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon.

Measuring real value

What is a measure of real value?

Now we cannot measure value but in terms of money. It means all our measurement of value is relative. It is like measuring time in terms of heart beats - 1 minute is 60 beats. Now if you start running (say printing more money) then will you have more minutes? Of course not! We will have to adjust the equation of how many beats make up a minute.

Modified Gold standard or constant money
Let us look at the modified gold standard - modified for simplicity. The total amount of gold in the world would remain constant. We would keep creating more value. So there will be natural deflation. The amount of deflation will tell us how much value we created. This is fine overall but total amount of gold is not fixed. It grows arbitrarily. So when Spanish empire discovered huge silver mine (also used like gold) they had a problem. So will we if some buried gold is suddenly discovered. Further, as I argued in my book, gold promotes hoarding while slight inflation promotes transactions (or velocity hence GDP). So gold may not be appropriate.

I believe real analysis will only come if we use absolute metric for value. Why can't there be a debate about possible metrics? It is remarkable that for all the human progress we are not able to create an absolute metric for value. 

How much is real estate as a percentage of total assets?

I often wonder what the does the fixed asset block at a country level looks like. 

Companies report their asset base in terms of land and property, plant and machinery, investments, cash and deposits, even goodwill (brands or excess payments for acquisitions) etc. In a company the investments we are told what is approximate value of this investment. (In some cases you have to work around but you can tell). 

If we have the total asset and those invested in real estate, then we know how much percentage change in real estate prices will impact the economy. True, it won't tell us GDP impact, but it will tell us the scale.  The impact will manifest in variety of direction but the quantum of impact is a critical variable. 

Let me give an example. A small meteor can strike anywhere on the planet and we really don't care. For a medium meteor, the point of impact matters. It creates a tsunami or a crater etc. But if a truly large meteor strikes then it does not matter where it strikes. The result is the same - total wipeout.

To parallel with financial crisis, I think we still do not know what is the size of real estate problem. The real estate problem encompasses the following:

1. Housing i.e. houses and residential buildings in possession of consumers.
2. Rental housing - those residential buildings owned by businesses but meant for renting.
3. Real Estate owned by companies. Like land for factories etc.
4. Commercial Real Estate like malls, theaters, office complexes.
5. Agricultural land owned by people and companies
6. It does not include lands that we cannot sell or lease like forest lands for example or gardens.

Then we need to find out  what is the amount of loan for which this stands as collateral. We can then estimate the impact of 1% change of valuations. My guess is the total size of real estate assets will be like 2/3rd of total global assets. The total loans outstanding against these assets is an unknown. We can agree that the problem is not small. The question is how big is it.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon.

Retaining US jobs

Yves Smith commented on Andy Grove's post about retaining US jobs. I am worried about the very idea of job exports.

Job profile of the economy

In an ideal state, every economy should have a job profile of its citizens. Job profile will be based on skills available in the workforce. For example, (pardon all the cliches across the post) France and Italy will have higher clothes designers than manufacturers while China will have more clothes manufacturers than designers. This is result of natural specialization and, as such, ties in with two great works by Michael Porter and Adam Smith. So there is nothing fundamentally wrong with exporting jobs. the problem is what jobs do you export.

America is exporting the keep-jobs

Based on the education, skills and experience of workers, we may possibly conclude that America needs these jobs. It needs the car-manufacturing jobs and IT hardware jobs. But these jobs are going overseas. Why? The only reason why jobs are being exported is because it is cheaper to get the job done elsewhere. The labour in developing countries is cheaper in US dollar terms. This could be true because of two reasons:

First is the well understood relative currency valuation reason. If in relative terms Chinese auto worker is paid the same as US auto worker, then the only reason will be currency disadvantage. But is Chinese auto worker paid the same as US auto worker in relative terms? I don't think so. The relative wages are similar in high-tech industry like Pharma, IT services industry, computer chip design, architectural firms etc. But not in auto basic skill industries like auto, garmenting etc.

Second, if there is relative difference in wages, it could be because Chinese labour is poor and hence ready to work at cheaper prices. This is a fundamentally sound case and more applicable to auto, garmenting and other basic skill jobs. These jobs will eventually move.

Implication of job migration

There are some critical points we can decipher from this reality.

First, every job profile seems to have an average purchasing power parity wage. So for each combination of skill, output, education, experience and productivity there is a world parity wage. I call this wage content of a job (in my book) where job refers to one requiring standard profile. If your wage is higher than the wage content of that job you are doing, then you are at high risk of being laid-off.

Second, if Americans are desperate for these jobs, it implies that skill levels in America are more aligned with these jobs. In other words, the American skills difference and wage difference does not reconcile. It means US wages are out of line and need to come down to international wage content levels. We can achieve it by deflation or by resetting the currency. Either ways, it is not pleasant.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

Krugman, Ferguson and/on Zakaria

Fareed Zakaria is one of the most insightful host and journalist. In this episode, the presents the two sides of Austerity vs. Stimulus debate. I have already presented my thoughts about Austerity vs. Stimulus.

I want to make a few comments.

First, only certainty can fight uncertainty. In times of uncertainty, like today, the objective of policy is to increase certainty. So a roadmap for reform and policy changes for 10 years and a political consensus (bipartisan or multi-party political consensus as applicable in each nation) and commitment is essential. So Niall Ferguson is spot on with this point. I believe any reasonable certainty will work rather than a specific austerity oriented certainty.

Second, we can kill certainty by acting without a plan - or let me rephrase - by appearing to act without a plan. Conversely, just by acting decisively you can create certainty. I believe the US president should split his speech into two parts - the unchanging goals and course correcting strategies. In both aspects he should communicate decisive action communicating certainty. A plan will definitely help.

Third, Krugman is correctly pointing out that stimulus has not reached the masses. The objective of stimulus, to my mind, was to create income certainty. Whatever the reason, the stimulus has failed to achieve this objective. In this aspect, I think Keynes is being misunderstood and then derided for what may be out-of-context interpretation of his ideas.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon

Austerity vs. Stimulus

Paul Krugman has reignited the debate about proposed austerity and continuing stimulus. I think we need to understand one more side to the argument. 

The problem 

The economic problem relates to creating jobs and businesses. Basically, we need avenues for people to start earning. Once people earn, they will pay taxes and spend a little from the surplus. This will make the economy self-sustaining. This has two steps. First, we cannot increase the burden of the people further. Second, what we spend should be big enough to generate incomes large enough to pay for it. This is essentially the dilemma. This is the reason why we need stimulus.

But the stimulus is not yet efficient

Though we have been living off stimuli for past two years, the mechanics of stimulus is not fully developed.

To reiterate my earlier position, this crisis has its roots in the certainty of income. A stimulus is efficient if it improves the certainty of income. The certainty is more important than the amount of income. The certainty of income will come from jobs (created by businesses large and small) and small businesses. It is clear that small businesses are critical link as they reduce the owners and few other people from list of those who want jobs. This is where stimulus should reach. But the stimulus is not reaching the intended location - able and potent small businesses and individuals.

The flow of money is such that the beneficiaries of the stimuli are not actually the ones who need it. Sadly, the reverse is also true. Those who are supposed to pay for the stimulus are not actually the ones who can. This is a double blow to the effectiveness of stimulus. But the fact that stimulus is misdirected does not mean that it is not needed.

Austerity won't help either

Austerity will severely constrain the opportunities of the masses. It will definitely aggravate the problems. Worse, at this point, austerity will wipe out any gains from earlier stimuli and render them useless. The prior stimuli will now appear as a burden without any gain or impact. When we have a fire we need water. The fact that some people wasted water should not stop us from bringing more.

What it means

At the start of the crisis, I had mentioned that either approaches may work if we fully commit ourselves right at the beginning. At the beginning we started with stimulus approach. Now we should fully commit to it. Our commitment issues may make the situation even worse. We will end up with larger liabilities and no jobs to pay them. It will push the world over the edge. 

So

We need to get two things done:

1. Examine what is preventing the earlier stimulus from working. Get the efficiency of stimulus going IMMEDIATELY.
2. Get more stimulus to where it is needed, FAST.

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My book "Subverting Capitalism & Democracy" is available on Amazon