Matt O’Brien gave readers a thoughtful discussion on how the euro zone’s stagnation is likely to persist for the indefinite future, primarily because Germany is acting to obstruct any serious efforts at stimulus. However at one point the logic gets a bit weak.
In laying out the various options for promoting stronger growth O’Brien suggests that Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank could try to push ahead with quantitative easing even without the support of Germany. He says this could prompt Germany to take legal action and it “might even threaten to leave the euro zone over it.”
If Germany left the euro zone, the problems of the other countries would be largely over. The euro would presumably fall in value against the new deutschemark, allowing the countries of southern Europe to quickly regain their competitiveness against Germany. The resulting reduction in their trade deficit would be a major boost to growth and employment. And this could be done without the financial disruptions that would be caused by the southern European countries leaving the euro.
So the question is, if Germany threatened to leave the euro zone, why wouldn’t the other countries just say “please do?”
Matt O’Brien gave readers a thoughtful discussion on how the euro zone’s stagnation is likely to persist for the indefinite future, primarily because Germany is acting to obstruct any serious efforts at stimulus. However at one point the logic gets a bit weak.
In laying out the various options for promoting stronger growth O’Brien suggests that Mario Draghi, the head of the European Central Bank could try to push ahead with quantitative easing even without the support of Germany. He says this could prompt Germany to take legal action and it “might even threaten to leave the euro zone over it.”
If Germany left the euro zone, the problems of the other countries would be largely over. The euro would presumably fall in value against the new deutschemark, allowing the countries of southern Europe to quickly regain their competitiveness against Germany. The resulting reduction in their trade deficit would be a major boost to growth and employment. And this could be done without the financial disruptions that would be caused by the southern European countries leaving the euro.
So the question is, if Germany threatened to leave the euro zone, why wouldn’t the other countries just say “please do?”
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Okay, there are a few hundred people who believe that the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars pocketed by CEOs reflect their worth in the market. (And most of those people write for newspapers or teach in business schools.) The rest understand that CEOs get incredibly rich by being able to rip off the companies that they supposedly work for. This is because the rules are rigged to give them effective control over the company.
Gretchen Morgenson has a good piece explaining one way in which CEOs and other top management rig the deck. Her column today talks about a Delaware court ruling that allows companies to write by-laws that make shareholders pay the company’s legal cost if they lose a case filed against the company. For example, this could mean that if shareholders sued a company because it rewrote the strike price on options given to an incompetent CEO, and then lost the case, then the shareholders would have to pay the company’s legal expenses.(Most U.S. companies are chartered in Delaware, so this ruling makes a big difference.)
Since companies that overpay incompetent CEOs tend to have hugely overpaid lawyers, this is likely to be a very serious expense. This would be a major disincentive to shareholder suits, making it easier for CEOs to rip off the companies for which they work.
It is worth noting that courts always had the authority to require losers to pay the winners’ legal fees in frivolous cases. The Delaware ruling means that losers would always be required to pay the company’s legal fees, even if the loss was due to a technical issue, such as a missed filing deadline.
Okay, there are a few hundred people who believe that the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars pocketed by CEOs reflect their worth in the market. (And most of those people write for newspapers or teach in business schools.) The rest understand that CEOs get incredibly rich by being able to rip off the companies that they supposedly work for. This is because the rules are rigged to give them effective control over the company.
Gretchen Morgenson has a good piece explaining one way in which CEOs and other top management rig the deck. Her column today talks about a Delaware court ruling that allows companies to write by-laws that make shareholders pay the company’s legal cost if they lose a case filed against the company. For example, this could mean that if shareholders sued a company because it rewrote the strike price on options given to an incompetent CEO, and then lost the case, then the shareholders would have to pay the company’s legal expenses.(Most U.S. companies are chartered in Delaware, so this ruling makes a big difference.)
Since companies that overpay incompetent CEOs tend to have hugely overpaid lawyers, this is likely to be a very serious expense. This would be a major disincentive to shareholder suits, making it easier for CEOs to rip off the companies for which they work.
It is worth noting that courts always had the authority to require losers to pay the winners’ legal fees in frivolous cases. The Delaware ruling means that losers would always be required to pay the company’s legal fees, even if the loss was due to a technical issue, such as a missed filing deadline.
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Paul Krugman is on the mark in his comments on quantitative easing and inequality. The policy has helped boost the economy and create jobs, it is almost certainly a net gainer from the standpoint of distribution. I would make three additional points, all going in the same direction.
First, when comparing the real value of the stock market to prior levels which we should expect an upward trend. The economy grows through time, as do profits, just assuming that profit share remains constant. The profit share has of course grown in recent years. This means that if the price to earnings ratio remains constant, then the value of the market should grow at roughly the same rate as the economy.
If we assume a 2.4 percent trend growth rate between 2007 and the present, the market should be roughly 17 percent higher in real terms today than in 2007, assuming no increase in trend profit shares. In other words, the market is pretty much in line with where we would expect it to be if there were no extraordinary monetary policy in place and the economy had followed it trend path. Crediting or blaming the Fed for the market’s bounceback from the 2008-2009 lows is just silly.
The second point is that the impoverished masses with large interest incomes (that’s a joke) also would benefit from the increase in asset prices, if they held any longer term bonds. When the interest rates on 10-year and 30-year bonds plummeted, the price of these bonds soared. This would have increased the wealth of middle income people who held these bonds. It’s possible that they don’t want to sell the bonds (after all, they can’t get a high interest rate if they re-invest the money elsewhere), but this the same story for rich people who hold lots of stock. The high stock price doesn’t do them any good unless they sell some stock.
Anyhow, the point is that in order for our middle income people to be hurt on net by the fall in interest rates, not only would it be necessary that all their money was in interest bearing assets (as opposed to stock), but it would have to be in short-term assets like savings accounts or certificates of deposits. This is a very small group of people. (I know everyone has an aunt who has $50k in a savings account — sorry, someone is lying in that story.)
Finally, normal middle income people tend to be big net payers of interest because of something called a “mortgage.” They may also have student loan debt. Lower interest rates have allowed tens of millions of people to have substantially lower mortgage and student loan payments. This is a huge plus on the distributional side. That doesn’t mean that mortgage and student loan payments are not a major burden in many cases, but they would be a much bigger burden if the interest payments were 1-2 percentage points higher.
In short, the distributional effects of QE were almost certainly a net positive, in spite of the fact that everyone’s aunt got hurt.
Paul Krugman is on the mark in his comments on quantitative easing and inequality. The policy has helped boost the economy and create jobs, it is almost certainly a net gainer from the standpoint of distribution. I would make three additional points, all going in the same direction.
First, when comparing the real value of the stock market to prior levels which we should expect an upward trend. The economy grows through time, as do profits, just assuming that profit share remains constant. The profit share has of course grown in recent years. This means that if the price to earnings ratio remains constant, then the value of the market should grow at roughly the same rate as the economy.
If we assume a 2.4 percent trend growth rate between 2007 and the present, the market should be roughly 17 percent higher in real terms today than in 2007, assuming no increase in trend profit shares. In other words, the market is pretty much in line with where we would expect it to be if there were no extraordinary monetary policy in place and the economy had followed it trend path. Crediting or blaming the Fed for the market’s bounceback from the 2008-2009 lows is just silly.
The second point is that the impoverished masses with large interest incomes (that’s a joke) also would benefit from the increase in asset prices, if they held any longer term bonds. When the interest rates on 10-year and 30-year bonds plummeted, the price of these bonds soared. This would have increased the wealth of middle income people who held these bonds. It’s possible that they don’t want to sell the bonds (after all, they can’t get a high interest rate if they re-invest the money elsewhere), but this the same story for rich people who hold lots of stock. The high stock price doesn’t do them any good unless they sell some stock.
Anyhow, the point is that in order for our middle income people to be hurt on net by the fall in interest rates, not only would it be necessary that all their money was in interest bearing assets (as opposed to stock), but it would have to be in short-term assets like savings accounts or certificates of deposits. This is a very small group of people. (I know everyone has an aunt who has $50k in a savings account — sorry, someone is lying in that story.)
Finally, normal middle income people tend to be big net payers of interest because of something called a “mortgage.” They may also have student loan debt. Lower interest rates have allowed tens of millions of people to have substantially lower mortgage and student loan payments. This is a huge plus on the distributional side. That doesn’t mean that mortgage and student loan payments are not a major burden in many cases, but they would be a much bigger burden if the interest payments were 1-2 percentage points higher.
In short, the distributional effects of QE were almost certainly a net positive, in spite of the fact that everyone’s aunt got hurt.
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That distinction would have improved the accuracy of a NYT article on the Republicans’ economic plans. The piece noted that Senate Republicans have limited their economic agenda. It told readers that they no longer call for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and have abandoned the “so-called Ryan Plan, a long-term budget to revamp Medicare and Medicaid and significantly reduce other domestic and military spending enough to balance the budget in 10 years, while sharply cutting taxes.”
Actually the Ryan plan was not really a plan to balance the budget while sharply cutting taxes. Ryan instructed the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to assume enough budget cuts from non-Social Security and non-Medicare spending to bring the budget into balance. He never proposed any specific cuts that would come anywhere close to meeting this target. In fact, he recently has been pushing for increases in spending in one of the areas that he previously had slated for cuts, the Earned Income Tax Credit.
There is a similar story on the tax side. Ryan instructed CBO to assume in its scoring that enough deductions would be eliminated to offset the revenue lost from his tax cuts, however he has never actively supported the elimination of any major tax break (e.g. the mortgage interest deduction or the deduction for employer-provided health insurance). In short, he had nothing resembling a real plan.
The piece also told readers:
“While most economists and business executives do not look to Congress for much, they do want a rewriting of the corporate tax code and a revamping of fast-growing entitlement benefit programs, even as they acknowledge that is virtually unachievable.”
It is not clear how it determined the views of most economists and business executives. While there probably is little disagreement that the corporate tax code is a mess, it is not clear that most economists and business executives see an urgency to “revamping fast-growing entitlement programs.” The real news here is that the sharp slowdown in health care cost growth in recent years has caused projected growth of Medicare and Medicaid spending to fall sharply. In fact, the projections have fallen more as a result of the slower pace of health care cost growth than would have been accomplished by many austerity plans, like the one put forward by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission.
This slowdown in health care cost growth has removed the urgency for doing anything to change Medicare and Medicaid. Given the very limited assets of most workers near retirement age, there are few economists who view it as realistic to have any substantial cuts for Social Security any time soon. So it is simply not true that there is some widespread consensus around overhauling these programs.
That distinction would have improved the accuracy of a NYT article on the Republicans’ economic plans. The piece noted that Senate Republicans have limited their economic agenda. It told readers that they no longer call for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act and have abandoned the “so-called Ryan Plan, a long-term budget to revamp Medicare and Medicaid and significantly reduce other domestic and military spending enough to balance the budget in 10 years, while sharply cutting taxes.”
Actually the Ryan plan was not really a plan to balance the budget while sharply cutting taxes. Ryan instructed the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to assume enough budget cuts from non-Social Security and non-Medicare spending to bring the budget into balance. He never proposed any specific cuts that would come anywhere close to meeting this target. In fact, he recently has been pushing for increases in spending in one of the areas that he previously had slated for cuts, the Earned Income Tax Credit.
There is a similar story on the tax side. Ryan instructed CBO to assume in its scoring that enough deductions would be eliminated to offset the revenue lost from his tax cuts, however he has never actively supported the elimination of any major tax break (e.g. the mortgage interest deduction or the deduction for employer-provided health insurance). In short, he had nothing resembling a real plan.
The piece also told readers:
“While most economists and business executives do not look to Congress for much, they do want a rewriting of the corporate tax code and a revamping of fast-growing entitlement benefit programs, even as they acknowledge that is virtually unachievable.”
It is not clear how it determined the views of most economists and business executives. While there probably is little disagreement that the corporate tax code is a mess, it is not clear that most economists and business executives see an urgency to “revamping fast-growing entitlement programs.” The real news here is that the sharp slowdown in health care cost growth in recent years has caused projected growth of Medicare and Medicaid spending to fall sharply. In fact, the projections have fallen more as a result of the slower pace of health care cost growth than would have been accomplished by many austerity plans, like the one put forward by Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, the co-chairs of President Obama’s deficit commission.
This slowdown in health care cost growth has removed the urgency for doing anything to change Medicare and Medicaid. Given the very limited assets of most workers near retirement age, there are few economists who view it as realistic to have any substantial cuts for Social Security any time soon. So it is simply not true that there is some widespread consensus around overhauling these programs.
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It’s too bad that so many people in public life aren’t old enough to remember all the way back to 2008. That is the only explanation for the rush to remove down payment minimums for a risk retention requirement on mortgages placed in mortgage backed securities.
This is the topic of an excellent column by Floyd Norris on how the banking and housing industry, with the support of some consumer groups, managed to remove any down payment requirements. The idea was that banks would have to keep a portion of the risk on all but the safest loans, thereby increasing the likelihood that they would not issue bad loans.
However the rules in the Dodd-Frank bill have been watered down so that even loans with no down payment could be put into mortgage pools even though they have more than four times the default risk of loans with 20 percent down payments. It is also worth pointing out that the cost of requiring that banks retain risk on low down payment loans did not mean that people could not get loans without large down payments as often claimed.
In fact, the only issue was whether they would pay somewhat higher interest rates in the form of mortgage insurance. This would add roughly 0.6-0.7 percentage points to the cost of a typical loan, reflecting the higher default risk. This issue has been hugely misrepresented by the banking industry and its allies so that they can freely return to the practices of the bubble years.
It’s too bad that so many people in public life aren’t old enough to remember all the way back to 2008. That is the only explanation for the rush to remove down payment minimums for a risk retention requirement on mortgages placed in mortgage backed securities.
This is the topic of an excellent column by Floyd Norris on how the banking and housing industry, with the support of some consumer groups, managed to remove any down payment requirements. The idea was that banks would have to keep a portion of the risk on all but the safest loans, thereby increasing the likelihood that they would not issue bad loans.
However the rules in the Dodd-Frank bill have been watered down so that even loans with no down payment could be put into mortgage pools even though they have more than four times the default risk of loans with 20 percent down payments. It is also worth pointing out that the cost of requiring that banks retain risk on low down payment loans did not mean that people could not get loans without large down payments as often claimed.
In fact, the only issue was whether they would pay somewhat higher interest rates in the form of mortgage insurance. This would add roughly 0.6-0.7 percentage points to the cost of a typical loan, reflecting the higher default risk. This issue has been hugely misrepresented by the banking industry and its allies so that they can freely return to the practices of the bubble years.
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For those who find it difficult to understand how drugs can be developed without patent protection, the Canadian government has an answer. It paid for the development of an Ebola vaccine. While the vaccine was reportedly 100 percent effective in tests with lab animals, the government did not pay for the testing in humans that would be necessary to market the drugs.
This provides a good example where a government agency was able to finance effective research. (There are many others.) Unless we think that the government somehow cannot pay for useful clinical tests (apparently the argument is the tests are too expensive for the government, it can only afford to pay exorbitant prices for the drugs themselves), it is difficult to understand an argument against publicly funded research for drugs which would allow them all to be sold at generic prices. This would end the absurdity of people facing life threatening diseases who can’t get needed drugs because patent monopolies make them unaffordable.
For those who find it difficult to understand how drugs can be developed without patent protection, the Canadian government has an answer. It paid for the development of an Ebola vaccine. While the vaccine was reportedly 100 percent effective in tests with lab animals, the government did not pay for the testing in humans that would be necessary to market the drugs.
This provides a good example where a government agency was able to finance effective research. (There are many others.) Unless we think that the government somehow cannot pay for useful clinical tests (apparently the argument is the tests are too expensive for the government, it can only afford to pay exorbitant prices for the drugs themselves), it is difficult to understand an argument against publicly funded research for drugs which would allow them all to be sold at generic prices. This would end the absurdity of people facing life threatening diseases who can’t get needed drugs because patent monopolies make them unaffordable.
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That would have been useful background to be included in a NYT article on the European Union’s plans for future emission targets. Many readers may not realize that the countries in the European Union are starting from a much lower emissions level than the United States. This means that reductions will be more costly to achieve.
That would have been useful background to be included in a NYT article on the European Union’s plans for future emission targets. Many readers may not realize that the countries in the European Union are starting from a much lower emissions level than the United States. This means that reductions will be more costly to achieve.
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Joe Nocera is anxious to credit shale oil with the recent plunge in oil prices, but our old friend Mr. Arithmetic sees things differently. In his column pronouncing the end of OPEC, Nocera credits the “shale revolution” in North America, which he credits with an additional 3 million barrels a day of production.
While this undoubtedly has put downward pressure on prices, it is not the major cause of price declines as can be easily seen from looking at the projections from before the economic collapse in 2008. The 2007 World Energy Outlook projected output in 2015 of 98.5 million barrels per day (Table 1.3). The most recent projections put production at 92.7 million barrels per day, 5.8 million fewer than had been projected before the slump. This means production has actually grown less rapidly than projected. That is not a good explanation for declining prices.
Obviously the key is on the demand side. The story here is primarily that the collapse has led to less demand for energy than had been projected as world GDP is still far below the levels projected in 2007. It is likely that conservation and the switch to alternative energy sources also played a role in reducing the demand for oil, but clearly a less important one.
The point is that crowning fracking as the killer of OPEC doesn’t make sense, because the numbers don’t support it. And, we still don’t have basic questions answered about the damage of fracking to the surrounding environment. (The frackers won’t reveal the chemicals they use because they claim they are a trade secret. This makes it almost impossible to prove that fracking is responsible for contaminating ground water. The permission to pollute the area surrounding frack sites with impunity is yet another great departure from free market economics when it suits the interests of the rich and powerful.)
The plunge in oil prices is also not especially good news for folks who would rather not see the planet destroyed by global warming. A sane approach would be to impose a tax to offset the drop in prices with the revenue used to promote conservation and clean energy. But that one isn’t likely to be on the political agenda any time soon.
Joe Nocera is anxious to credit shale oil with the recent plunge in oil prices, but our old friend Mr. Arithmetic sees things differently. In his column pronouncing the end of OPEC, Nocera credits the “shale revolution” in North America, which he credits with an additional 3 million barrels a day of production.
While this undoubtedly has put downward pressure on prices, it is not the major cause of price declines as can be easily seen from looking at the projections from before the economic collapse in 2008. The 2007 World Energy Outlook projected output in 2015 of 98.5 million barrels per day (Table 1.3). The most recent projections put production at 92.7 million barrels per day, 5.8 million fewer than had been projected before the slump. This means production has actually grown less rapidly than projected. That is not a good explanation for declining prices.
Obviously the key is on the demand side. The story here is primarily that the collapse has led to less demand for energy than had been projected as world GDP is still far below the levels projected in 2007. It is likely that conservation and the switch to alternative energy sources also played a role in reducing the demand for oil, but clearly a less important one.
The point is that crowning fracking as the killer of OPEC doesn’t make sense, because the numbers don’t support it. And, we still don’t have basic questions answered about the damage of fracking to the surrounding environment. (The frackers won’t reveal the chemicals they use because they claim they are a trade secret. This makes it almost impossible to prove that fracking is responsible for contaminating ground water. The permission to pollute the area surrounding frack sites with impunity is yet another great departure from free market economics when it suits the interests of the rich and powerful.)
The plunge in oil prices is also not especially good news for folks who would rather not see the planet destroyed by global warming. A sane approach would be to impose a tax to offset the drop in prices with the revenue used to promote conservation and clean energy. But that one isn’t likely to be on the political agenda any time soon.
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