Yes, it’s the season of the whopper here in DC as the dreaded Mayan apocalypse (a.k.a. “fiscal cliff) approaches. According to the Washington Post, unnamed Pentagon officials warned that it may have to furlough up to 800,000 civilian employees if the budget sequester goes into effect this week. That sounds really scary since the Labor Department says that the Defense Department has less than 560,000 civilian employees. How is this supposed to work exactly?
[Note: Typos corrected, thanks Elizabeth.]
Yes, it’s the season of the whopper here in DC as the dreaded Mayan apocalypse (a.k.a. “fiscal cliff) approaches. According to the Washington Post, unnamed Pentagon officials warned that it may have to furlough up to 800,000 civilian employees if the budget sequester goes into effect this week. That sounds really scary since the Labor Department says that the Defense Department has less than 560,000 civilian employees. How is this supposed to work exactly?
[Note: Typos corrected, thanks Elizabeth.]
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The Post had a major business section article promising that 2013 could be the year of a “rip-roaring” recovery, if nothing bad gets in the way. While there are reasons to think that 2013 could be better than the prior two years, it’s not clear that “rip-roaring” would be the right term to apply.
The high-end of growth forecasts is around 3.0 percent. This assumes that the budget standoff is resolved relatively quickly on terms that do little damage to the recovery. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the economy is currently operating about 6 percent below potential GDP. CBO puts potential growth at 2.4 percent, which means that if the economy does grow at a 3.0 percent rate we would be reducing the output gap by 0.6 percentage points.
At this pace it would take us 10 years to get back to potential GDP. When the economy has suffered severe downturns in the past, for example in 1974-75 and 1981-82, the economy had stretches of growth in the range of 7-8 percent. That sort of growth could reasonably be described as “rip-roaring,” 3.0 percent doesn’t really fit the bill.
There are a few other items that are not exactly right in this piece. It rightly notes the improvement in the housing sector, which is likely to continue into 2013, but neglects to mention the vacancy rate. While there has been a considerable decline in the vacancy rate from the record levels reached in 2010, the vacancy rate is still far above its pre-bubble level. This will be a drag on construction as many people forming their own household can turn to units that are currently vacant rather than newly constructed units.
The piece also holds out the hope that consumer spending will rebound based on the fact that consumers have paid down much of their debt from the bubble years. This claim is bizarre for two reasons. First, it is not just debt that affects spending. It is also wealth. A debt of $1 million would leave most of us struggling to meet our payments. By contrast, if Bill Gates had $1 million in debt it would not affect his consumption at all, because he also has $50 billion in assets. The story of the downturn in consumption is that households have lost close to $8 trillion in housing equity. This explains the downturn in consumption from its bubble peaks. The role of debt is very much secondary.
The other reason why the prediction of an upswing in consumption is bizarre is that consumption is already at an unusually high level relative to disposable income. If anything, it should be surprising that consumption is so high, given the loss of so much housing wealth.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Finally, the piece seems to have reversed the relative impact on growth and unemployment associated with the ending of the payroll tax cut, telling readers:
“The CBO estimates that the end of the payroll tax holiday, combined with an extension of unemployment benefits, could cost the economy 0.7 percentage points of growth and increase the jobless rate by 0.8 percentage points over what it otherwise would have been.”
Usually the impact on growth is roughly twice the size of the impact on the unemployment rate. While it is plausible that CBO projected that the end of the payroll tax cut would slow growth by 0.7 percentage points, it is not plausible that this would be associated with a 0.8 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate.
The Post had a major business section article promising that 2013 could be the year of a “rip-roaring” recovery, if nothing bad gets in the way. While there are reasons to think that 2013 could be better than the prior two years, it’s not clear that “rip-roaring” would be the right term to apply.
The high-end of growth forecasts is around 3.0 percent. This assumes that the budget standoff is resolved relatively quickly on terms that do little damage to the recovery. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the economy is currently operating about 6 percent below potential GDP. CBO puts potential growth at 2.4 percent, which means that if the economy does grow at a 3.0 percent rate we would be reducing the output gap by 0.6 percentage points.
At this pace it would take us 10 years to get back to potential GDP. When the economy has suffered severe downturns in the past, for example in 1974-75 and 1981-82, the economy had stretches of growth in the range of 7-8 percent. That sort of growth could reasonably be described as “rip-roaring,” 3.0 percent doesn’t really fit the bill.
There are a few other items that are not exactly right in this piece. It rightly notes the improvement in the housing sector, which is likely to continue into 2013, but neglects to mention the vacancy rate. While there has been a considerable decline in the vacancy rate from the record levels reached in 2010, the vacancy rate is still far above its pre-bubble level. This will be a drag on construction as many people forming their own household can turn to units that are currently vacant rather than newly constructed units.
The piece also holds out the hope that consumer spending will rebound based on the fact that consumers have paid down much of their debt from the bubble years. This claim is bizarre for two reasons. First, it is not just debt that affects spending. It is also wealth. A debt of $1 million would leave most of us struggling to meet our payments. By contrast, if Bill Gates had $1 million in debt it would not affect his consumption at all, because he also has $50 billion in assets. The story of the downturn in consumption is that households have lost close to $8 trillion in housing equity. This explains the downturn in consumption from its bubble peaks. The role of debt is very much secondary.
The other reason why the prediction of an upswing in consumption is bizarre is that consumption is already at an unusually high level relative to disposable income. If anything, it should be surprising that consumption is so high, given the loss of so much housing wealth.
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Finally, the piece seems to have reversed the relative impact on growth and unemployment associated with the ending of the payroll tax cut, telling readers:
“The CBO estimates that the end of the payroll tax holiday, combined with an extension of unemployment benefits, could cost the economy 0.7 percentage points of growth and increase the jobless rate by 0.8 percentage points over what it otherwise would have been.”
Usually the impact on growth is roughly twice the size of the impact on the unemployment rate. While it is plausible that CBO projected that the end of the payroll tax cut would slow growth by 0.7 percentage points, it is not plausible that this would be associated with a 0.8 percentage point rise in the unemployment rate.
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Readers of the NYT article on the latest developments in the budget negotiations may have not realized that the Republican demands for changing the indexation formula for the Social Security cost of living adjustment is equivalent to a 3 percent cut in benefits for a typical retiree. The new formula would lower the adjustment by approximately 0.3 percentage points each year. This means that a retiree would be receiving 3 percent lower benefits after 10 years, 6 percent lower benefits after 20 years and 9 percent lower benefits after 30 years. If a typical retiree collects benefits for 20 years then the average reduction in benefits would be about 3.0 percent.
The piece also claims that:
“Both sides worry that the confrontational tone that the president took on “Meet the Press” was not helpful.”
It only included comments from Republicans who didn’t like President Obama’s tone. There were no Democrats cited who had this attitude, even off the record.
Readers of the NYT article on the latest developments in the budget negotiations may have not realized that the Republican demands for changing the indexation formula for the Social Security cost of living adjustment is equivalent to a 3 percent cut in benefits for a typical retiree. The new formula would lower the adjustment by approximately 0.3 percentage points each year. This means that a retiree would be receiving 3 percent lower benefits after 10 years, 6 percent lower benefits after 20 years and 9 percent lower benefits after 30 years. If a typical retiree collects benefits for 20 years then the average reduction in benefits would be about 3.0 percent.
The piece also claims that:
“Both sides worry that the confrontational tone that the president took on “Meet the Press” was not helpful.”
It only included comments from Republicans who didn’t like President Obama’s tone. There were no Democrats cited who had this attitude, even off the record.
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The NYT had a fascinating piece on how Questcor raised the price of its drug Acthar to $28,000 per prescription. Since it raised its price it has begun pushing the drug for a number of uses for which it may not be suited. It is able to do this because the drug was initially approved by the FDA in 1952, before restrictions on off-label marketing applied.
Until recently the drug sold for less than $2,000 per prescription. (Apparently, the manufacturing process is complicated and expensive.) At this price the drug company had little incentive to try to promote its drug for different uses. It is only the high price which provides the incentive for mis-marketing the drug.
The NYT had a fascinating piece on how Questcor raised the price of its drug Acthar to $28,000 per prescription. Since it raised its price it has begun pushing the drug for a number of uses for which it may not be suited. It is able to do this because the drug was initially approved by the FDA in 1952, before restrictions on off-label marketing applied.
Until recently the drug sold for less than $2,000 per prescription. (Apparently, the manufacturing process is complicated and expensive.) At this price the drug company had little incentive to try to promote its drug for different uses. It is only the high price which provides the incentive for mis-marketing the drug.
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William D. Cohan had a bizarre opinion piece in the Sunday Post claiming that the Fed’s low interest rate policy was hurting savers and helping hedge funds. The gist of the story is that low interest rates hurt small savers with bank deposits while they make it easier for hedge funds to borrow money to speculate. Both sides seem more than a bit off the mark.
On the small savers story, it’s not clear how much anyone could be hurt. It’s not clear what interest rate Cohan would expect the Fed to run in a badly depressed economy (he complains about an “artificially” low rate, which seems to imply that there is a natural rate out there somewhere), but let’s assume that 2 percent would be Cohan’s preferred rate. If a saver has $40,000 in the bank (this would put them way above the bulk of the population in terms of their holdings of financial assets), Bernanke’s zero interest policy is costing them $800 a year. That’s not trivial, but hardly a disaster either.
Even this loss assumes that all of their savings are in short term deposits. If they hold long-term bonds they have seen their price soar, at least in part because of Bernanke’s policy. Also the low interest rate policy has almost certainly given a boost to the stock market as well.
On the hedge fund side, investors have benefited from lower interest rates, but this is hardly necessary for them to profit. Hedge funds made plenty of money in the higher interest rate environment of 2006-2007 as well as the late 90s. The zero interest rate policy is certainly not necessary for them to earn hefty profits.
The biggest gainers from the low interest rate policy are probably the millions of homeowners who have been able to refinance at interest rates that are 1-2 percentage points lower than their previous mortgage. A 1.5 percentage point drop in interest rates on a $200,000 mortgage would save a homeowner $3,000 a year in interest payments. For this reason it is very difficult to see Bernanke’s low interest rate policy as one designed to primarily benefit the wealthy.
William D. Cohan had a bizarre opinion piece in the Sunday Post claiming that the Fed’s low interest rate policy was hurting savers and helping hedge funds. The gist of the story is that low interest rates hurt small savers with bank deposits while they make it easier for hedge funds to borrow money to speculate. Both sides seem more than a bit off the mark.
On the small savers story, it’s not clear how much anyone could be hurt. It’s not clear what interest rate Cohan would expect the Fed to run in a badly depressed economy (he complains about an “artificially” low rate, which seems to imply that there is a natural rate out there somewhere), but let’s assume that 2 percent would be Cohan’s preferred rate. If a saver has $40,000 in the bank (this would put them way above the bulk of the population in terms of their holdings of financial assets), Bernanke’s zero interest policy is costing them $800 a year. That’s not trivial, but hardly a disaster either.
Even this loss assumes that all of their savings are in short term deposits. If they hold long-term bonds they have seen their price soar, at least in part because of Bernanke’s policy. Also the low interest rate policy has almost certainly given a boost to the stock market as well.
On the hedge fund side, investors have benefited from lower interest rates, but this is hardly necessary for them to profit. Hedge funds made plenty of money in the higher interest rate environment of 2006-2007 as well as the late 90s. The zero interest rate policy is certainly not necessary for them to earn hefty profits.
The biggest gainers from the low interest rate policy are probably the millions of homeowners who have been able to refinance at interest rates that are 1-2 percentage points lower than their previous mortgage. A 1.5 percentage point drop in interest rates on a $200,000 mortgage would save a homeowner $3,000 a year in interest payments. For this reason it is very difficult to see Bernanke’s low interest rate policy as one designed to primarily benefit the wealthy.
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Those of us old-timers who think that news reporting is about conveying information were seriously bothered by an NYT article on a plan for a one-year extension of the current farm bill. These bills usually run for 5 years. There had been plans to reduce the subsidies from the level in the previous bill in order to reduce the budget deficit. A one-year extension will not allow these savings to be realized.
However readers of this article would be unlikely to have any idea of the budgetary impact of this extension. The piece told readers;
“An extension would most likely wipe out billions of dollars in savings that lawmakers in both the Senate and House had achieved by cutting some farm and nutrition programs. The Senate bill would have saved about $23 billion. About $4.5 billion in savings would have come from cuts to the food stamp program.”
Okay, most people don’t have a clue how large or small these numbers are. If the point is informing readers why not express the numbers as a share of the budget. NYT readers understand percentages.
But this complaint can be directed at most budget reporting. What makes this piece stand out is that it gives readers no idea of the time frame. Would the savings of $23 billion come in the first year or is this over 5 years? The article provides no clue as to the answer. (I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.)
Anyhow, it should not have been too difficult to explicitly indicate the time-frame over which these savings are expected to take place. As it reads, this article provides almost no useful information to readers about the implication of the proposed extension on the farm bill.
Those of us old-timers who think that news reporting is about conveying information were seriously bothered by an NYT article on a plan for a one-year extension of the current farm bill. These bills usually run for 5 years. There had been plans to reduce the subsidies from the level in the previous bill in order to reduce the budget deficit. A one-year extension will not allow these savings to be realized.
However readers of this article would be unlikely to have any idea of the budgetary impact of this extension. The piece told readers;
“An extension would most likely wipe out billions of dollars in savings that lawmakers in both the Senate and House had achieved by cutting some farm and nutrition programs. The Senate bill would have saved about $23 billion. About $4.5 billion in savings would have come from cuts to the food stamp program.”
Okay, most people don’t have a clue how large or small these numbers are. If the point is informing readers why not express the numbers as a share of the budget. NYT readers understand percentages.
But this complaint can be directed at most budget reporting. What makes this piece stand out is that it gives readers no idea of the time frame. Would the savings of $23 billion come in the first year or is this over 5 years? The article provides no clue as to the answer. (I’m pretty sure it’s the latter.)
Anyhow, it should not have been too difficult to explicitly indicate the time-frame over which these savings are expected to take place. As it reads, this article provides almost no useful information to readers about the implication of the proposed extension on the farm bill.
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Everyone who pays even casual attention to energy prices know that they fluctuate dramatically. The price of a barrel of oil soared from around $40 in 2004 to a peak of $150 in 2008, then fell back under $40 briefly in the wake of the economic collapse later that year. While this run-up and crash was extraordinary, large fluctuations are not. This is why it is surprising to see the NYT tell us that many European manufacturers are planning to move their operations to the United States based on the lower cost of energy in the United States.
This claim is especially bizarre for two reasons. First, the large differences in prices will almost certainly not persist. The fracking boom in the United States has pushed gas prices down to a level that is roughly half of its level four years ago. At current prices much fracking is not profitable and producers have already slowed their rate of drilling.
In addition, producers have plans to export liquid natural gas. While it takes time to build facilities, it is likely that the U.S. will soon be exporting large amounts of natural gas. This will have the effect of equalizing prices between Europe and the United States in the same way that trade equalizes the price of oil in Norway, a huge oil exporter, and Italy, which imports almost all its oil. While there will still be differences in price due to transportation costs and also tax rates, most of the current gap in prices would be eliminated. Presumably the people who run major companies in Europe understand this fact and take it into consideration in their decision to locate factories that may be operating for 30-40 years.
The other strange aspect to this piece is that it implies that Europe can’t compete with the United States due to differences in energy costs. The Commerce Department would seem to strongly disagree with this view. It reports that the United States trade deficit with the European Union was $94.8 billion through the first eight months of 2012, an increase of almost 20 percent from the deficit in 2011.
This seems like a clear case of who are you going to believe, the NYT saying that energy costs have made Europe uncompetitive or the Commerce Department telling us that its trade surplus is growing.
Everyone who pays even casual attention to energy prices know that they fluctuate dramatically. The price of a barrel of oil soared from around $40 in 2004 to a peak of $150 in 2008, then fell back under $40 briefly in the wake of the economic collapse later that year. While this run-up and crash was extraordinary, large fluctuations are not. This is why it is surprising to see the NYT tell us that many European manufacturers are planning to move their operations to the United States based on the lower cost of energy in the United States.
This claim is especially bizarre for two reasons. First, the large differences in prices will almost certainly not persist. The fracking boom in the United States has pushed gas prices down to a level that is roughly half of its level four years ago. At current prices much fracking is not profitable and producers have already slowed their rate of drilling.
In addition, producers have plans to export liquid natural gas. While it takes time to build facilities, it is likely that the U.S. will soon be exporting large amounts of natural gas. This will have the effect of equalizing prices between Europe and the United States in the same way that trade equalizes the price of oil in Norway, a huge oil exporter, and Italy, which imports almost all its oil. While there will still be differences in price due to transportation costs and also tax rates, most of the current gap in prices would be eliminated. Presumably the people who run major companies in Europe understand this fact and take it into consideration in their decision to locate factories that may be operating for 30-40 years.
The other strange aspect to this piece is that it implies that Europe can’t compete with the United States due to differences in energy costs. The Commerce Department would seem to strongly disagree with this view. It reports that the United States trade deficit with the European Union was $94.8 billion through the first eight months of 2012, an increase of almost 20 percent from the deficit in 2011.
This seems like a clear case of who are you going to believe, the NYT saying that energy costs have made Europe uncompetitive or the Commerce Department telling us that its trade surplus is growing.
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That is the explicit argument in his NYT column today. What is more interesting than what he says is what he doesn’t say. There is no mention whatsoever of the possibility of taxing Wall Street, an idea that is now being pushed even by the International Monetary Fund. The U.K. raises between 0.2-0.3 percent of GDP on tax that only hits stock trade, leaving options, futures, and other derivative instruments unaffected. This would be roughly $500 billion over the course of a decade in the United States.
Japan had a tax that raised 1.0 percent of its GDP in the late 80s. That would be roughly $2 trillion over the course of a decade. Robert Pollin and I outlined a structure of taxes that could raise a comparable amount here. Anyhow, the middle class might be in Mankiw’s sights when it comes to taxes, Wall Street obviously is not.
The biggest item on the other side of the equation is health care. Our costs are hugely out of line with the rest of the world. We pay on average more than twice as much per person for our health care as people in other wealthy countries with little to show for it in terms of outcomes. If our per person costs were comparable to those in other countries we would be looking at long-term budget surpluses, not deficit.
We could look to fix our health care system or failing that allow people to take advantage of the more efficient systems in other countries by promoting trade in health care services. But this is apparently also not on Mankiw’s agenda. These measures would likely be bad news for the drug companies, medical equipment industry, and highly paid medical specialists.
In short, if we assume a world where we can’t take any measures that would hurt the wealthy, then we will probably have to raise taxes on the middle class. However the rest of us may not want to accept Mankiw’s assumption here.
That is the explicit argument in his NYT column today. What is more interesting than what he says is what he doesn’t say. There is no mention whatsoever of the possibility of taxing Wall Street, an idea that is now being pushed even by the International Monetary Fund. The U.K. raises between 0.2-0.3 percent of GDP on tax that only hits stock trade, leaving options, futures, and other derivative instruments unaffected. This would be roughly $500 billion over the course of a decade in the United States.
Japan had a tax that raised 1.0 percent of its GDP in the late 80s. That would be roughly $2 trillion over the course of a decade. Robert Pollin and I outlined a structure of taxes that could raise a comparable amount here. Anyhow, the middle class might be in Mankiw’s sights when it comes to taxes, Wall Street obviously is not.
The biggest item on the other side of the equation is health care. Our costs are hugely out of line with the rest of the world. We pay on average more than twice as much per person for our health care as people in other wealthy countries with little to show for it in terms of outcomes. If our per person costs were comparable to those in other countries we would be looking at long-term budget surpluses, not deficit.
We could look to fix our health care system or failing that allow people to take advantage of the more efficient systems in other countries by promoting trade in health care services. But this is apparently also not on Mankiw’s agenda. These measures would likely be bad news for the drug companies, medical equipment industry, and highly paid medical specialists.
In short, if we assume a world where we can’t take any measures that would hurt the wealthy, then we will probably have to raise taxes on the middle class. However the rest of us may not want to accept Mankiw’s assumption here.
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Let’s see, if Congress does nothing then the budget deficit will fall by around $600 billion to a bit more than 2 percent of GDP. How is this a “fiscal crisis?” Of course it’s not a fiscal crisis.
It is an austerity bomb. If the higher taxes and reduced pace of spending are left in place over the course of the year (not the first 2 weeks in January), then GDP growth will slow and the economy will likely fall back into recession.
Please explain why the NYT still doesn’t have this straight after covering the issue endlessly for the last three months?
Let’s see, if Congress does nothing then the budget deficit will fall by around $600 billion to a bit more than 2 percent of GDP. How is this a “fiscal crisis?” Of course it’s not a fiscal crisis.
It is an austerity bomb. If the higher taxes and reduced pace of spending are left in place over the course of the year (not the first 2 weeks in January), then GDP growth will slow and the economy will likely fall back into recession.
Please explain why the NYT still doesn’t have this straight after covering the issue endlessly for the last three months?
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That seems to be the view of the NYT editorial board which concluded a piece on the fiscal standoff by saying:
“But if Congress cannot approve a deal by New Year’s Day, the anticipated sell-off on Wall Street in early January would, one hopes, force House Republicans to budge.”
This view, if correct, is truly scary. First, the real impact of failing to come to a deal is the higher taxes and reduced spending which will soon slow growth and raise unemployment if Congress waits too long into 2013 to take action. One might hope that this would be of sufficient concern to get the Republicans in Congress to move.
As far as a sell-off on Wall Street, first it may not come and second, who gives a damn? The stock market has presumably priced in the risk of not seeing a deal by the end of the year. While prices will likely fall further if that risk is realized, those anticipating some sort of double-digit drop are likely to be disappointed.
On the flip side, it would be really scary if folks in Washington are making policy based on the ups and downs of the stock market. The stock market moves in erratic fashion in response to real news and to nothing. What were the events in the world that provided the basis for the 25 percent drop in prices in October of 1987? Was the economy headed for disaster?
Furthermore, even large fluctuations in the market have only a limited impact on the economy. If the market rises (or falls) by 10 percent there will be a very limited impact on investment, as the small portion of firms that rely stock issuance for financing investment will find it easier (or harder) to do so, as well as a modest impact on consumption due to the wealth effect. But even a 10 percent movement hardly implies a boom or recession. If we see the market fall by 3 percent as a result of missing the deadline, which may subsequently reversed, the impact on the economy will be hard to detect.
It would be incredibly irresponsibly to make policy based on stock market fluctuations. If some members of Congress actually base their votes on stock market fluctuations then this would be a great news story. Voters should have this information so that they can replace the current members with more competent policymakers.
Thanks to Robert Salzberg for calling this to my attention.
That seems to be the view of the NYT editorial board which concluded a piece on the fiscal standoff by saying:
“But if Congress cannot approve a deal by New Year’s Day, the anticipated sell-off on Wall Street in early January would, one hopes, force House Republicans to budge.”
This view, if correct, is truly scary. First, the real impact of failing to come to a deal is the higher taxes and reduced spending which will soon slow growth and raise unemployment if Congress waits too long into 2013 to take action. One might hope that this would be of sufficient concern to get the Republicans in Congress to move.
As far as a sell-off on Wall Street, first it may not come and second, who gives a damn? The stock market has presumably priced in the risk of not seeing a deal by the end of the year. While prices will likely fall further if that risk is realized, those anticipating some sort of double-digit drop are likely to be disappointed.
On the flip side, it would be really scary if folks in Washington are making policy based on the ups and downs of the stock market. The stock market moves in erratic fashion in response to real news and to nothing. What were the events in the world that provided the basis for the 25 percent drop in prices in October of 1987? Was the economy headed for disaster?
Furthermore, even large fluctuations in the market have only a limited impact on the economy. If the market rises (or falls) by 10 percent there will be a very limited impact on investment, as the small portion of firms that rely stock issuance for financing investment will find it easier (or harder) to do so, as well as a modest impact on consumption due to the wealth effect. But even a 10 percent movement hardly implies a boom or recession. If we see the market fall by 3 percent as a result of missing the deadline, which may subsequently reversed, the impact on the economy will be hard to detect.
It would be incredibly irresponsibly to make policy based on stock market fluctuations. If some members of Congress actually base their votes on stock market fluctuations then this would be a great news story. Voters should have this information so that they can replace the current members with more competent policymakers.
Thanks to Robert Salzberg for calling this to my attention.
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