Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charity. Show all posts

Friday, December 04, 2015

Quote of the Day: Mark Zuckerberg's "Charity" as Tax Shield

Like any parent, they want their child to grow up in a better world.

And they outlined their vision to make this happen, including taking risks and making long-term investments, building technology, and backing strong, independent leaders and visionaries.

This sounds conspicuously like the mission statement for any number of high-end Silicon Valley venture capital firms.

In a way, this is what the Zuckerbergs have created.

At the end of the letter, they pledge to contribute 99% of their Facebook shares, currently worth about $45 billion, to “advance this mission”.

The New York Times jumped on this immediately: “Mark Zuckerberg vows to donate 99% of his Facebook shares for charity.”

Incorrect. This isn’t charity.

The Zuckerbergs formed a limited liability company (LLC). It’s not a non-profit or charitable trust.

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative is a for-profit, privately held vehicle that’s intended to make investments that will advance their vision.

Over the course of their lives, they’ll transfer Facebook shares to the LLC.

But as that transfer is considered a donation, the Zuckerbergs will be able to completely eliminate capital gains tax from their Facebook shares.

Plus they’ll be able to shield billions of dollars of other income from tax by writing off the donation as a charitable contribution.

Perhaps the biggest benefit is that the Facebook shares could now entirely avoid US federal estate tax.

At the end of the day, Mr. Zuckerberg gets to retain -control- of his fortune and shares, directing funds as he sees fit into for-profit, private investments, while drastically reducing his tax bill.

This is no surprise. Zuckerberg has already proven tremendously adept at minimizing taxes.

Facebook paid $178 million in net tax on pre-tax profit of $4.91 billion in 2014, an effective tax rate of 3.6%.

And there is no shortage of critics who have a major problem with this.

These hopelessly delusional and misguided people still actually believe that the way to make the world a better place is to give incompetent, corrupt politicians more money.

And in a height of arrogance, they think they are entitled to some claim on Mark Zuckerberg’s wealth.

Sorry, but this is complete lunacy.
This excerpt is from Sovereign Man founder Simon Black's latest article at his website.

The establishment of the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative charitable trust represents a deft and an ingenious move: conversion of the Zuchkerberg's Facebook assets to a tax shield which was publicized as charity. It's like hitting two birds with one stone: The move, through PR means, reduce the populist politically incorrect rap on them, as well as, to starve ever esurient Leviathan beast

Friday, June 26, 2015

Quote of the Day: From The Capitalist as the Ultimate Philanthropist

At the end of the day, there are only four things you can do with your money: You can spend it, pay it to the IRS, give it away or reinvest it. Consumption is on the receiving end of productivity—furthering personal instead of public welfare. Government spending is by definition not productive, as you realize every time you step into a DMV. Same goes for charitable giving—no profit means no measure of value or productivity.

And so the most productive thing someone can do with his money—the only thing that will increase living standards—is invest. If the Ford or Clinton foundations really wanted to help society, they’d work on lowering barriers to business formation and cutting the regulatory chains that inhibit productive hiring in the U.S. and globally. But what fun is that? Better to boast about reducing inequality, public welfare be damned.
This quote is from former hedge fund manager and author of "Eat People" Andy Kessler at the Wall Street Journal (a recommended read)

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Philippine Politics: To Save the Kids, Stop Inflationism, Promote Economic Freedom; Henry Hazlitt’s Cure for Poverty

In the Philippines, election season is upon us or just about a year and a few months away, so populist politics has once again been hugging the headlines. 

So what easier way to boost popular approval to generate future votes than—not only to focus on “poverty”—but to publicly appeal for compassion by fixating on a specific group: poverty on kids

Yet most of the proposed solution has been the same since time immemorial; more centralization, bigger government or simply more redistribution: multiplying wealth by dividing it.

So for this election season, it seems that poor kids will serve as instruments of sloganeering for the advancement of political careers of politicians.

Politicians make it sound is as if the private sector has no sense of compassion at all. Hardly the politicians realize that from an economic standpoint, the relief of poverty equates to the well-being of enterprises.


So why shouldn’t the private sector contribute voluntarily? There are numerous civic groups (such as Rotary, Lions and et.al.) working to help solve social ills by voluntarism. [The two Rotary's which I used to be a member of have active feeding programs mainly on public schools]

The question is what has been an obstacle to private sector solutions?

There has been almost zero zilch nada nein nyet in any mainstream discussion has tackled on how financial repression or government redistribution policies mainly through central bank inflationism has served as a fundamental and structural reason in raising self-poverty ratings that has spurred populist calls for more centralized solution on poverty. 

Add to this the plethora of interventionisms via mandates, regulations, government spending and more all finance by higher taxes. Where will taxes come from? Manna from heaven?

Yet hasn’t it been contradictory to see a swelling of self poverty ratings in the face of G-R-O-W-T-H?

The clueless mainstream calls 'strong' economic growth and soaring self poverty ratings a “paradox”. They apparently have been long blind to comprehend that statistical G-R-O-W-T-H has been occurring to a few ‘concentrated’ bubble sectors, controlled by mostly the elites, whose G-R-O-W-T-H (use of more resources) has occurred from extensive leveraging in the formal banking system and capital markets—coming at the expense of or, all financed by Peso holders (via the use of less resources but pays the cost of higher prices or diminished purchasing power on income or savings).

Yet the same politically connected or influential economic elites contributes to a significant majority to the statistical economic output which mainstream G-R-O-W-T-H which is the reason for the “strong”. 

But statistical growth isn’t real economic growth. That's what the "paradox" has been about.

It is only when this massive redistribution mechanism via invisible subsidies in favor of the government and to these political elites channeled through the banking system diminishes when the burdens of self-poverty eases (as I have previously shown in SWS’s chart last August)

I post below the great libertarian Henry Hazlitt’s proposal for the cure for poverty.  From the Conquest of Poverty (chapter 20: The Cure of Poverty p 229-234; bold and italics mine)
Individual or family poverty results when the "breadwinner" cannot in fact win bread; when he cannot or does not produce enough to support his family or even himself. And there will always be some human beings who will temporarily or permanently lack the ability to provide even for their own self-support. Such is the condition of all of us as young children, of many of us when we fall ill, and of most of us in extreme old age. And such is the permanent condition of some who have been struck by misfortune—the blind, the crippled, the feebleminded. 

Where there are so many causes there can be no all embracing cure. 

It is fashionable to say today that "society" must solve the problem of poverty. But basically each individual—or at least each family—must solve its own problem of poverty. The overwhelming majority of families must produce more than enough for their own support if there is to be any surplus available for the remaining families that cannot or do not provide enough for their own support. Where the majority of families do not provide enough for their own support—where society as a whole does not provide enough for its own support—no "adequate relief system" is even temporarily possible. Hence "society" cannot solve the problem of poverty until the overwhelming majority of families have already solved (and in fact slightly more than solved) the problem of their own poverty.

All this is merely stating in another form the Paradox of Relief referred to in Chapter 18: The richer the community, the less the need for relief, but the more it is able to provide; the poorer the community, the greater the need for relief, but the less it is able to provide. 

And this in turn is merely another way of pointing out that relief, or redistribution of income, voluntary or coerced, is never the true solution of poverty, but at best a makeshift, which may mask the disease and mitigate the pain, but provides no basic cure.

Moreover, government relief tends to prolong and intensify the very disease it seeks to cure. Such relief tends constantly to get out of hand. And even when it is kept within reasonable bounds it tends to reduce the incentives to work and to save both of those who receive it and of those who are forced to pay it. It may be said, in fact, that practically every measure that governments take with the ostensible object of "helping the poor" has the long-run effect of doing the opposite. Economists have again and again been forced to point out that nearly every popular remedy for poverty merely aggravates the problem. I have analyzed in these pages such false remedies as the guaranteed income, the negative income tax, minimum-wage laws, laws to increase the power of the labor unions, opposition to labor-saving machinery, promotion of "spread-the-work" schemes, special subsidies, increased government spending, increased taxation, steeply graduated income taxes, punitive taxes on capital gains, inheritances, and corporations, and outright socialism.

But the possible number of false remedies for poverty is infinite.

Two central fallacies are common to practically all of them. One is that of looking only at the immediate effect of any proposed reform on a selected group of intended beneficiaries and of overlooking the longer and secondary effect of the reform not only on the intended beneficiaries but on everybody.

The other fallacy, akin to this, is to assume that production consists of a fixed amount of goods and services, produced by a fixed amount and quality of capital providing a fixed number of "jobs." This fixed production, it is assumed, goes on more or less automatically, influenced negligibly if at all by the incentives or lack of incentives of specific producers, workers, or consumers. "The problem of production has been solved," we keep hearing, and all that is needed is a fairer "distribution."

What is disheartening about all this is that the popular ideology on all these matters shows no advance—and if anything even a retrogression—compared with what it was more than a hundred years ago. In the middle of the nineteenth century the English economist Nassau Senior was writing in his journal:

"It requires a long train of reasoning to show that the capital on which the miracles of civilization depend is the slow and painful creation of the economy and enterprise of the few, and of the industry of the many, and is destroyed, or driven away, or prevented from arising, by any causes which diminish or render insecure the profits of the capitalist, or deaden the activity of the laborer; and that the State, by relieving idleness, improvidence, or misconduct from the punishment, and depriving abstinence and foresight of the reward, which have been provided for them by nature, may indeed destroy wealth, but most certainly will aggravate poverty."

Man throughout history has been searching for the cure for poverty, and all that time the cure has been before his eyes.

Fortunately, as far at least as it applied to their actions as individuals, the majority of men instinctively recognized it—which was why they survived. That individual cure was Work and Saving. In terms of social organization, there evolved spontaneously from this, as a result of no one's conscious planning, a system of division of labor, freedom of exchange, and economic cooperation, the outlines of which hardly became apparent to our forebears until two centuries ago. That system is now known either as Free Enterprise or as Capitalism, according as men wish to honor or disparage it.

It is this system that has lifted mankind out of mass poverty.

It is this system that in the last century, in the last generation, even in the last decade, has acceleratively been changing the face of the world, and has provided the masses of mankind with amenities that even kings did not possess or imagine a few generations ago.

Because of individual misfortune and individual weaknesses, there will always be some individual poverty and even "pockets" of poverty. But in the more prosperous Western countries today, capitalism has already reduced these to a merely residual problem, which will become increasingly easy to manage, and of constantly diminishing importance, if society continues to abide in the main by capitalist principles. Capitalism in the advanced countries has already, it bears repeating, conquered mass poverty, as that was known throughout human history and almost everywhere, until a change began to be noticeable sometime about the middle of the eighteenth century. 

Capitalism will continue to eliminate mass poverty in more and more places and to an increasingly marked extent if it is merely permitted to do so.

In the chapter "Why Socialism Doesn't Work," I explained by contrast how capitalism performs its miracles. It turns out the tens of thousands of diverse commodities and services in the proportions in which they are socially most wanted, and it solves this incredibly complex problem through the institutions of private property, the free market, and the existence of money—through the interrelations of supply and demand, costs and prices, profits and losses. And, of course, through the force of competition. Competition will tend constantly to bring about the most economical and efficient method of production possible with existing technology—and then it will start devising a still more efficient technology. It will reduce the cost of existing production, it will improve products, it will invent or discover wholly new products, as individual producers try to think what product consumers would buy if it existed. 

Those who are least successful in this competition will lose their original capital and be forced out of the field; those who are most successful will acquire through profits more capital to increase their production still further. So capitalist production tends constantly to be drawn into the hands of those who have shown that they can best meet the wants of the consumers.

Perhaps the most frequent complaint about capitalism is that it distributes its rewards "unequally." But this really describes one of the system's chief virtues. Though mere luck always plays a role with each of us, the increasing tendency under capitalism is that penalties are imposed roughly in proportion to error and neglect and rewards granted roughly in proportion to effort, ability, and foresight. It is precisely this system of graduated rewards and penalties, in which each tends to receive in proportion to the market value he helps to produce, that incites each of us constantly to put forth his greatest effort to maximize the value of his own production and thus (whether intentionally or not) help to maximize that of the whole community.

If capitalism worked as the socialists think an economic system ought to work, and provided a constant equality of living conditions for all, regardless of whether a man was able or not, resourceful or not, diligent or not, thrifty or not, if capitalism put no premium on resourcefulness and effort and no penalty on idleness or vice, it would produce only an equality of destitution.

Another incidental effect of the inequality of incomes inseparable from a market economy has been to increase the funds devoted to saving and investment much beyond what they would have been if the same total social income had been spread evenly. The enormous and accelerative economic progress in the last century and a half was made possible by the investment of the rich—first in the railroads, and then in scores of heavy industries requiring large amounts of capital. The inequality of incomes, however much some of us may deplore it on other grounds, has led to a much faster increase in the total output and wealth of all than would otherwise have taken place.

Those who truly want to help the poor will not spend their days in organizing protest marches or relief riots, or even in repeated protestations of sympathy. Nor will their charity consist merely in giving money to the poor to be spent for immediate consumption needs. Rather will they themselves live modestly in relation to their income, save, and constantly invest their savings in sound existing or new enterprises, so creating abundance for all, and incidentally creating not only more jobs but better-paying ones. 

The irony is that the very miracles brought about in our age by the capitalist system have given rise to expectations that keep running ahead even of the accelerating progress, and so have led to an incredibly shortsighted impatience that threatens to destroy the very system that has made the expectations possible.

If that destruction is to be prevented, education in the true causes of economic improvement must be intensified beyond anything yet attempted.
The cure for poverty is for the government to STOP COERCIVE REDISTRIBUTION via financial and economic repression. The obverse side is to PROMOTE SOUND MONEY and ECONOMIC FREEDOM. But none of this economic reality will generate votes.

Monday, November 18, 2013

Typhoon Yolanda: From Natural to Man-Made Calamity; Spontaneous Order Thrives!

What alone enables mankind to advance and distinguishes man from the animals is social cooperation. It is labor alone that is productive: it creates wealth and therewith lays the outward foundations for the inward flowering of man.-Ludwig von Mises

There is something wrong with the system[1]

That comment came from an exasperated Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin who caviled over why relief goods have barely found its way to the victims of the storm.

Before I proceed to elaborate on this, let me add more compelling quotes from Ground Zero[2]:
But there is another reason the looting had abated.

"There is nothing left to loot," said Pedrosa. [Note: Christopher Pedrosa is a government aid worker]
You must have heard a popular saying: Money can’t buy everything. Here is a living proof, from the same article:

Rusty Lacambra, 42, is joining the exodus along with his wife, two sons and niece. On Monday night he hitched a lift in an army truck bound for the airport to wait with hundreds of others hoping for a free flight on a cargo plane to Manila.

"My house is destroyed," he said. "Even if you have money there is no food to buy. There is nothing here.
Massive Supply Disruption and Money Throwing Solutions

Two very important insights from the two quotes above.

First, massive supply disruption in the aftermath of Typhoon Yolanda on crisis stricken areas have been the central problem that has led to a near breakdown of community relationships.

Trade or voluntary exchanges has been incapacitated for the simple reason of lack of access to basic goods (food, water, medicine) to fulfill physiological needs (Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs[3]).

The basic question is why this, when there had been copious number of relief goods waiting to be distributed? This is the kernel of the Defense Secretary’s griping.

Second, the same comments put into the spotlight money’s role as medium of exchange: money’s exchangeability is ultimately founded on its purchasing power. Plenty of money with no goods or services to acquire equals zero purchasing power.

The unfolding developments from the unfortunate Typhoon Yolanda tragedy represent a testament to the fundamental economic truism where money, in and of itself is not wealth, rather it is the purchasing power of money (or what money can buy) that reflects on wealth.

Curiously every ‘expert’ seems to know of costs of the destruction and what is required for a recovery.

One expert jumps to the conclusion that the Philippine President’s 18.7 billion pesos funds may not be enough, where the Philippines should immediately resort to borrowing from the bond markets given the low interest rate and abundant liquidity[4].

[As a side note, funds available from the Office of the President are Php 16 billion in ‘savings’, Php 6 billion President’s Social Fund and Php 1 billion from calamity and contingency funds[5]]

A local politician, who is an economist and recently appointed as the head of a multilateral environmental agency, predicts Php 604 billion (USD 14 billion) impact to the economy, based on economic modelling data from a climate modeller. He postulates that the Philippine government should spend anywhere this amount to replace lost economic capacity[6].

These are what I call as populist politically correct shortcuts in approaching social ailments, specifically, throwing money at problem, replacing the politically incorrect authorities, demanding for more regulation or prohibition and or taxing the problem. Little goes beyond these.

But there are major problems with the above.

One, the accuracy of actual costs of damages. These are estimates; some of them are model based which barely seem as reality. 

Typhoon Pablo (December 2012) and Typhoon Pepeng (October 2009) have been the most destructive with costs pegged at Php 42.2 billion (USD 1.04 billion) and Php 27.7 billion (USD 608 million) respectively[7]. Note these typhoons have been recent. 

image

From a back of the envelop assessment of the potential costs from Typhoon Yolanda, looking at the National Statistical Coordination Board’s data[8], we can note that Eastern Visayas, which has been the hardest hit region, represents 2.29% of the 2012 statistical economy (constant prices).

If we add Central and Western Visayas, these regions account for 12.7% of the economy. But while the damages vary from locality to locality, my impression is that the damages in other regions won’t be as substantial or unlikely comparable with the scale of the damages in the epicentre: Eastern Visayas.

But given that I am not in the position to assess on the actual costs from the Typhoon, I will leave the tallying to those involved and will refrain from quibbling over statistics.

However in my view, while Typhoon Yolanda may top Pablo and Pepeng, which I have reservations on, I am even vastly suspicious of the Php 604 (USD 14 billion) estimates—which based on a non-statistical argument, particularly the use populist politics to justify a splurge in government spending via alarmism

As the great journalist, essayist and libertarian Henry Louis “HL” Mencken warned[9],
the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary
As of this writing property damages have been estimated at P10,339,290,061[10]

image

And a possible example of the “focusing illusion” or “anchoring” or the human tendency to rely too heavily on the first piece of information offered[11] could be the status of Yolanda as the “strongest” Typhoon to hit the country.

The Wall Street Journal notes that based on “maximum sustained winds”, it turns out that Typhoon Yolanda represents the 7th strongest—based on Pag-Asa data[12]. There may be technical contentions on these but a more important aspect will be the degree of destruction and overall impact on society.

Two, these experts assume that it is the responsibility of the government to undertake all the reconstruction efforts as if the private sector exists in a vacuum.

What guarantee will government spending “replace lost economic capacity”? If government spending equals the economy then why not let government spend ad infinitum and we just enjoy the fruits of their undertaking? The problem is, what government spends it has to take from someone. And that someone is us, the taxpayer, and us, the Peso holders.

Three, who determines where all the spending should be focused on or what constitutes as lost economic capacity? Recall that the dead victims from the storm had been part of the lost economic capacity, can the government spend to bring back these lost lives?

The problem with speaking in aggregates is like talking political motherhood statements, they rely on opaque presumptions. They sound plausible, but will this be practical or even feasible?

Fourth, all these “throwing money” solutions assume free lunches or no consequences from government borrowing and spending. However bigger spending means more taxes and inflation which tends to reduce economic capacity, or worst, shrink the purchasing power of the peso. What guarantees that additional debt burdens will not increase the risks of an economic Typhoon Yolanda, via a debt default or hyperinflation?

Yet these pathetic obsession to use statistics as policy setting instruments or image enhancement has been illustrated by the Philippine President’s attempt at rebutting the initial 10,000 estimated death toll.

Interviewed by the CNN[13], the Philippine president dismissed 10,000 estimates as ‘too much’ and offered a range of 2,000-2,500 instead. The Philippine president also even blamed global warming from the catastrophe.

In response to critics, the Philippine President even reportedly sacked the Police General[14] who allegedly had been the source of the 10,000 casualty estimates.

Obviously the President sees rising death toll as negatively influencing his popularity instead of the addressing the apparent mismanaging of relief operations post-Typhoon Yolanda.

As of this writing, official figures via National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council have been posted at 3,681[15] far larger from the President’s estimate. The United Nations tally has been at 4,460[16].

This focusing on the death figures leaves a bad taste in the mouth especially for the victims of the storm. “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic” is quote popularly (mis) attributed to USSR despot Joseph Stalin[17].

Each lives lost is a tragedy. And tragedies, used as tools to promote political goals, are reprehensible.

As for climate change as the cause of Typhoon Yolanda (Haiyan), a Time report says that scientists “can't yet find a clear signal between global warming and killer tropical storms”[18]

All these shows that the popularity addicted President appear to be grasping at the straws to pass the blame of the catastrophe to save his image.

The Failure of Centrally Planned Disaster Relief Operations

We will hardly ever know the fatalities incurred directly from the powerful typhoon as distinguished from government failure.

In the same article where the Defense Secretary bemoaned “There is something wrong with the system”, a foreign aid team Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), complete with medical supplies, arrived in Cebu as early as Saturday looking to fly to Tacloban but this group hasn’t left even by Tuesday.

How many of the people, who perished just after the typhoon could have been saved by this volunteer medical aid group?

Yet what has kept relief goods from reaching the victims?

The Defense Minister’s lamentation has actually been an allusion to the “inclusion of politics in distribution of relief goods”[19]. This seems to have been affirmed by Cabinet Secretary Jose Rene Almendras who said that survivors complained of distribution of goods based on “political considerations”.

In short politics inhibited the flow of goods to fill in the supply-side disruption.

This stunning quote is a demonstration of what has led to Tacloban’s near social breakdown. (bold mine)
“If you want to make it fast, the government can open every airport in the Visayas then the [United Nations] and other entities can come in immediately,” Abdul Mutalis, of the private Putera Malaysia club, said.

“People are hungry. People need help,” he said, adding that the slow delivery of relief is prolonging the suffering of the typhoon survivors.

“We have to expedite [the delivery of aid] if we want to help them now. Action speaks louder than words,” he said.

For the last 20 years, Mutalis’ club has been responding to disasters, including the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and the 2011 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

This is the mother of all disasters. There’s no word I can use right now (to describe this Philippine tragedy),” Mutalis said.
Again another private volunteer group wanting to reach the victims but has been impeded by politics.

Let me just say that the key for any recovery from a disaster is to incentivize people to stay within their territories for them reestablish their sources of livelihood and lifestyles.

As the illustrious 19th century English philosopher and political economist John Stuart Mill explained[20] (bold mine)
The possibility of a rapid repair of their disasters mainly depends on whether the country has been depopulated. If its effective population have not been extirpated at the time, and are not starved afterwards; then, with the same skill and knowledge which they had before, with their land and its permanent improvements undestroyed, and the more durable buildings probably unimpaired, or only partially injured, they have nearly all the requisites for their former amount of production. If there is as much of food left to them, or of valuables to buy food, as enables them by any amount of privation to remain alive and in working condition, they will in a short time have raised as great a produce, and acquired collectively as great wealth and as great a capital, as before; by the mere continuance of that ordinary amount of exertion which they are accustomed to employ in their occupations.
This is the role played by temporary relief operations which politics almost crippled

Apparently the supplyside bottleneck has forced people to consider fleeing depressed areas, not because of security, but mainly because of the lack of goods to fulfill physiological needs. Reports say that people stampeded into the airport wishing to be flown out, as Tacloban seemed to have been “thrown back to the primitive age”[21] says an official.

Based on all the accounts that I have gathered, it seemed that the incumbent administration originally planned to conduct relief operations from top-to-bottom process. Unfortunately Typhoon Yolanda exposed on the administration’s knowledge problem through several unforeseen factors that proved to be major hindrances:

-scale of devastation from the storm
-breakdown of local and national governments at the storm stricken areas
-rapid depletion of basic goods (e.g. “Money seemed to have no value in the city—people would rather have food, water, electricity and means of communication”)
-damaged roads and infrastructure
-insufficient logistics (teams from Philippine government teams have reportedly been ferried by the US military planes)
-partisan politics in the grassroots level (e.g. distribution of goods, closed roads on adjoining areas)
-political obstacles such as red tape that inhibited volunteer groups to conduct decentralized relief missions

Remember this is the same government which earlier trumpeted “implementing precautionary measures” with the aim for "zero casualty” as I pointed out last week

Yet unfolding events above seem to be validating my observations[22]
Leyte’s natural disaster tragedies (Typhoon Uring 1991, Typhoon Yolanda 2013 and 2006 Southern Leyte mudslide) have hardly been random: Destitution, steep cultural dependency on political solutions and geographic vulnerabilities account for as a deadly cocktail mix when confronted with Mother Earth’s tantrums.
Spontaneous Order Helped Saved the Day

I noted of observations where “spontaneous order” supposedly “failed” to emerge as social disorder dominated. This view confuses cause and effect. The reason why money became of no value is that, as pointed above, this has been due to a major dislocation, particularly the lack of access to basic goods (food, water, medicine) to fulfill physiological needs. There had been plenty of money but nothing to eat or drink.

Voluntary trade has been undermined because what has been demanded has been unavailable. The absence of basic goods led many towards desperate acts just to survive. Some resorted to looting. Others scampered away from Tacloban. Others just died.

On the other hand, the distribution of available relief goods have been politicized.

Remember people respond to incentives. When people perceive unfairness or polarization due to the politicization of distribution of goods, some people may resort to violence or aggression. Co-opting the resources of others has been one of the relevant evolutionary impulses[23] on why some people resort to violence.

I don’t deny that there have been criminal elements who employ dastardly acts such as the random stabbing of a 13 year old child[24]. But this hasn’t been a sign of failure of spontaneous order. Criminals exist everywhere at any class or category of community.

And more than that, a 5,000 strong communist rebel group operates in Leyte. The rebels initially became an obstacle to aid groups whom feared of being kidnapped. The rebels only declared a ceasefire last November 16th almost a week after the ferocious storm[25]. Yet how would one determine if the illegitimate acts during the post-storm transition have been committed by rebels or by criminals or by a dysfunctional society?

What you see depends on where you stand. When we do data mining to prove a point while ignoring the other evidences, such would be selective perception[26]—ignoring data that contradicts one’s belief. Maintaining rigid biases are hardly helpful in learning or discovering truths.

What then is spontaneous order?

If I go by the great Austrian economist Friedrich von Hayek’s definition[27], Spontaneous order would represent a “system which has developed not through the central direction or patronage of one or a few individuals but through the unintended consequences of the decisions of myriad individuals each pursuing their own interests through voluntary exchange, cooperation, and trial and error” (bold mine)

The reason I earlier placed in bold emphasis voluntary aid groups as Doctors Without Borders or the private Putera Malaysia club has been to show “voluntary exchange, cooperation, and trial and error” in motion.

And these have been only two of the stream of voluntary groups from NGOs, to private enterprises, individuals, family members or even publicly listed companies undertaking relief efforts[28].

I was even surprised when one of the US financial based website I frequently visit has a “Typhoon Haiyan Holiday Drive: Please Help Now”[29]

The internet has internationalized “spontaneous order”.

Even from the local levels we see “voluntary exchange, cooperation, and trial and error” in action. One private shipping company Starlite Ferries, offered at its expense, services to the Philippine Red Cross for a week to carry relief supplies and aid workers on calamity stricken areas.

A Tacloban based gasoline station businessman gave away his fuel inventories to people within the area as part of his relief effort[30].

One may object to the idea of charity as way of cooperation, but as John Stuart Mill pointed out above, disaster recovery would have to begin at home. People will have to rebuild their lives, and charity is one of the main paths to bridge any deficits brought about by calamities in order to attain this goal.

During the post Typhoon Ondoy calamity, I wrote that Charity is the province of the Marketplace[31] (bold original)
Remember it is in the vested interest of the private sector to be charitable.

This is not only due to self esteem or social purposes but for sustaining the economic environment.

Think of it, if retail store ABC's customer base have been blighted by the recent mass flooding, where a massive dislocation- population loss through death or permanent relocation to other places- would translate to an economic loss for the store, then, it would be in the interest of owners of store ABC to "charitably" or voluntarily provide assistance of various kind to the neighborhood in order to prevent such dislocation from worsening, or as a consequence from indifference, risks economic losses.

Hence, such acts of charity is of mutual benefit.
The benevolent acts of the Tacloban businessman and of Starlite Ferries reinforce my view.

And spontaneous order shouldn’t be mistaken for impulsive or knee jerk reactions but of a social process which evolves through time. Again F.A. Hayek[32] (Fatal Conceit)
To understand our civilisation, one must appreciate that the extended order resulted not from human design or intention but spontaneously: it arose from unintentionally conforming to certain traditional and largely moral practices, many of which men tend to dislike, whose significance they usually fail to understand, whose validity they cannot prove, and which have nonetheless fairly rapidly spread by means of an evolutionary selection — the comparative increase of population and wealth — of those groups that happened to follow them. The unwitting, reluctant, even painful adoption of these practices kept these groups together, increased their access to valuable information of all sorts, and enabled them to be 'fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it' (Genesis 1:28). This process is perhaps the least appreciated facet of human evolution.
A good example would be private aid groups who respond to natural disasters. They have organized their institutions to specialize on catering to communities suffering from natural disasters. This has been why their comments with regards to political shortcomings have been especially noteworthy and influential

The great F. A. Hayek[33] in the Law Legislation and Liberty presciently wrote about how the spontaneous orders are undermined
The spontaneous order arises from each element balancing all the various factors operating on it and by adjusting all its various actions to each other, a balance which will be destroyed if some of the actions are determined by another agency on the basis of different knowledge and in the service of different ends.
In other words, when the forces of decentralization have been obstructed by the forces of centralization. This represents exactly the logjams or bottlenecks in the relief goods distribution encountered by the private aid groups post-Typhoon Yolanda tragedy

Nevertheless, I am very pleased to see how the forces of “spontaneous order” have managed to influence the political order.

From the opening of paragraph of Friday’s headlines[34]; (bold mine)
The distribution of food, water and medicine to typhoon survivors here picked up speed on Thursday after a barrage of criticisms from aid workers and the Philippine and international press forced the Aquino administration to bring order to its response to the calamity caused by Supertyphoon “Yolanda.”
Forces of spontaneous order have once again helped saved the day!

Phisix: Will Typhoon Yolanda be a scapegoat or relegated to the history pages?

As expected, Typhoon Yolanda became a popular post hoc rationalization of stock market behaviour. The Phisix fell 1.4% on Monday which has mostly been blamed on the storm. But through the week, the Phisix crept higher to recover most of its losses. The Phisix closed on Friday with a marginal loss of .14%. In my view, the weekly performance fits the current trend of sideways movement. And this only proves that typhoons are essentially a non-event for the stock markets.

And as also expected, we see the broken window fallacy and the obsession to statistical economic figures at work. This is an example “Economists say growth usually rebounds quickly after natural disasters, due to the lift from spending on reconstruction.[35]” These people have to be reminded that replacement is not value added. 

image

The titleholder of the most destructive storm is Typhoon Pablo (December 2012) with Php 42.2 billion in property damages. Yet the Phisix soared to a new high in May of this year and statistical growth remains at 7% through three quarters of the year.

This has been due to the massive credit expansion in the banking system which has been largely channelled to the real estate-construction and allied industries, the key drivers of Philippine statistical growth.

Yet the costs to properties from Yolanda’s fury have still been one-fourth of Typhoon Pablo. I believe the gist of the casualty and collateral damage count will peak by the next two weeks.

Yet for as long as the banking system keeps pumping money to the real economy induced by zero bound rates, my guess is that Typhoon Yolanda will hardly be a factor in the statistical growth figures.

A Typhoon Yolanda version to the financial markets and to the statistical economy is when credit boom will morph into a credit bust.

I would rather be watching two neighbors, Indonesia and China, who seem to be experiencing re-emergent signs of financial market ‘tremors’ which poses as potential risks for a shock.

image

The USD-Indonesian rupiah is just .6% away from the September highs. The last time the rupiah hit a milestone this coincided with the turmoil in the ASEAN financial markets.

Yet the rising rupiah has been backed by a surge in Indonesia’s 10 year bond yields but still far (about 30 basis points) from the recent highs.

Also while Indonesia’s Credit Default Swap has fallen following a recent surge, it is not clear if the USD-rupiah breaks to new highs we will see a rebound in the CDS premium. The last time the USD-rupiah set new highs Indonesia’s CDS prices spiked.

Record setting US markets has failed to inspire Indonesia’s stocks. This week the JCI closed -1.69%.

Curiously all these lethargy comes as Indonesia’s central bank “unexpectedly” raised interest rates last week[36].

While I am not saying that a panic is imminent, I am saying that current conditions requires vigilance because Indonesia’s financial markets appear to be exhibiting signs of renewed stress. And if such market strains worsen, then risks of a contagion from a panic must not be disregarded.

Meanwhile the strains in the Chinese financial markets seem present in the overnight lending rates and 10 year bonds but hardly expressed in the CDS or the stock markets yet[37]. Whether the evolving development represents an aberration or a seminal trend has to be nonetheless established.

If the Philippine market does experience a convulsion in response to a possible deterioration of regional conditions, expect Typhoon Yolanda to be a favorite scapegoat.


[1] Inquirer.net Logjam in aid delivery, November 14, 2013



[4] Bloomberg.com Philippines Declares State of Calamity November 11, 2013 gcaptain.com



[7] Wikipedia.org Most destructive Typhoons in the Philippines

[8] National Statistical Coordination Board Gross Regional Domestic Product- Data and Charts

[9] Henry Louis Mencken IN DEFENSE OF WOMEN


[11] Wikipedia.org Anchoring

[12] Wall Street Journal Southeast Real Time blog Was Haiyan the Strongest Storm Ever?


[14] The Wall Street Journal SEA Real Time Blog Police General Who Predicted 10,000 Deaths Removed November 14, 2013

[15] GMA news Loc cit

[16] Philstar.com UN : Yolanda death toll over 4,000 November 15, 2013

[17] Wikiquote Misattributed Joseph Stalin. Wikiquote says that Kurt Tucholsky may have been the origin but David McCollough points at Joseph Stalin’s conversation with Winston Churchill in Tehran as possible source.



[20] John Stuart Mill, Book I, Chapter V Fundamental Propositions respecting Capital Principles of Political Economy with some of their Applications to Social Philosophy

[21] Inquirer.net Mad rush out of Tacloban November 13, 2013

[22] See Typhoon Yolanda and the Phisix, November 11, 2011



[25] Wall Street Journal SEA Blog Rebel Group in Philippines Declares Cease-Fire November 16, 2013

[26] Wikipedia.org Selective perception


[28] Inquirer.net Outpouring of support for ‘Yolanda’ survivors November 17, 2013; Yahoo.com Businessman gives away free fuel in typhoon-ravaged Tacloban November 15, 2013; Wall Street Journal Aid Groups Fan Out Across the Philippines November 15, 2013

[29] Minyanville.com Typhoon Haiyan Holiday Drive: Please Help Now November 14, 2013



[32] Friedrich von Hayek THE FATAL CONCEIT The Errors of Socialism p.6 libertarianismo.org

[33] Friedrich von Hayek Law Legislation and Liberty Volume I page 51 libertarianismo.org

[34] Inquirer.net Aid delivery picks up pace November 15, 2013


[36] Bloomberg.com Indonesia Unexpectedly Raises Key Rate November 12, 2013