US Budget Debate: The Path Towards “Running Out of People’s Money”

It is tax deadline day today, which makes a good day to deal with some du jour tax related issues.

In the US, there has been ‘fierce’ ongoing budget- budget deficit cutting debate which has apparently been used as a staging point for the 2012 Presidential elections.

The Wall Street Journal has this budget cutting table showing the Ryan-Obama square-off.

Given these, Professor Walter E. Williams, has a timely and apropos article, where he makes an assumption that considering President Obama’s “class warfare-soak the rich” rhetoric, the US government appropriates

ALL earnings of the “rich” income group $250K and above ($1.4 trillion) +

Fortune 500 corporate profits ($400 billion) +

the assets of US Forbes 400 billionaires ($1.3 trillion) =

The $3.1 trillion won’t be enough to pay for the President proposed $3.7 trillion budget for 2012.

The Business Insider has a breakdown of these proposed budget

Professor Williams writes, (bold highlights mine)

Politicians, news media people and leftists in general entertain what economists call a zero elasticity view of the world. That's just fancy economic jargon for a view that government can impose a tax and people will behave after the tax just as they behaved before the tax, and the only change is more government revenue. One example of that vision, at the state and local levels of government, is the disappointing results of confiscatory tobacco taxes. Confiscatory tobacco taxes have often led to less state and local revenue because those taxes encouraged smuggling.

Similarly, when government taxes profits, corporations report fewer profits and greater costs. When individuals face higher income taxes, they report less income, buy tax shelters and hide their money. It's not just rich people who try to avoid taxes, but all of us – liberals, conservatives and libertarians.

What's the evidence? Federal tax collections have been between 15 and 20 percent of the nation's Gross Domestic Product every year since 1960. However, between 1960 and today, the top marginal tax rate has varied between 91 percent and 35 percent. That means whether taxes are high or low, people make adjustments in their economic behavior so as to keep the government tax take at 15 to 20 percent of the GDP. Differences in tax rates have a far greater impact on economic growth than federal revenues.

So far as Congress' ability to prey on the rich, we must keep in mind that rich people didn't become rich by being stupid.

That’s why former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher once said in a TV interview (which became a famous quote-bold highlights mine)

Socialist governments traditionally do make a financial mess. They always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them. They then start to nationalise everything, and people just do not like more and more nationalisation, and they're now trying to control everything by other means. They're progressively reducing the choice available to ordinary people.

Political interests and ambitions masquerading as noble intentions eventually will get unraveled. In short, it’s all about economics—what is unsustainable economically won’t last.

So the next step will be for US politicians to go for budget plugging actions. All accrued these actions will impact financial markets and the US and global economy.

Greece Default Risk At New Record, No Contagion

The default risk of Greece, represented by the Credit Default Swaps (CDS), has just traded at new record highs.

The elegant chart and subsequent table below from Bespoke Invest.

With the current surge, Greece has now supplanted Venezuela as the riskiest nation with the likelihood of a default, as shown below.

Additional comments

1. The credit risk table shows that it has been a bipolar world. Emerging markets have mostly been down (diminishing perception of credit risks), since December 31, 2009, while developed economies have been up (higher credit risks mostly from the after effect of the 2008 crisis).

2. The Greece episode which used to haunt the world markets (in 2010) appears “contained” or has become uncorrelated today.

(from stockcharts.com) Move along, nothing to see here

So far the Euro, the Europe’s Stoxx 50 (Stox50) and major global equity index (DJW) has virtually ignored the Greece rumpus unlike in 2010.

The lessons:

This highlights the dynamic where:

Past performance do not guarantee future outcome.

Markets learn to discount risks.

Global central bank’s flooding of money has so far temporarily masked whatever credit woes that have plagued the PIIGS.

It’s a complex market with variable interplaying factors. Oversimplification leads to misdiagnosis

Video: Amazing Virtual Choir

Whether you call this Peer2Peer or collaboration, globalization via technology have been linking people from all over the world for different interests. The video below exhibits an amazing global ensemble of a youtube based virtual choir.

I cannot resist quoting Prof Russ Roberts:

We are just beginning to tap the extraordinary potential for human creativity and how we can use the internet to harness that creativity. This is stunning both in concept and execution. Beautiful.

Indeed. Watch it.

Much Ado Over Nothing On US Budget Cuts, Debt Ceiling Next

As we previously argued the brouhaha over US budget cuts signified nothing but symbolism.

From the Washington Post, (bold emphasis mine)

A new budget estimate released Wednesday shows that the spending bill negotiated between President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner would produce less than 1 percent of the $38 billion in promised savings by the end of this budget year.

The Congressional Budget Office estimate shows that compared with current spending rates the spending bill due for a House vote Thursday would cut federal outlays from non-war accounts by just $352 million through Sept. 30. About $8 billion in immediate cuts to domestic programs and foreign aid are offset by nearly equal increases in defense spending.

When war funding is factored in the legislation would actually increase total federal outlays by $3.3 billion relative to current levels.

To a fair degree, the lack of immediate budget-cutting punch is because the budget year is more than half over and that cuts in new spending authority typically are slow to register on deficit tallies. And Republicans promise that when fully implemented and repeated year after year, the cuts in the measure would reduce the deficit by $315 billion over the coming decade.

So instead of cuts, we have budget increases. And prospective cuts only apply to projected spending which are decades away.

As Lew Rockwell writes, (bold emphasis mine)

In other words, this is all political play, which is obvious from the numbers and the norms. In the first place, no one is talking about actual cuts, not even the supposedly radical Republicans. These are cuts in projected spending, meaning that everyone is dealing with symbolic changes in a future that is just as symbolic. Even on paper, the only way to consider these cuts is to compare them with the GDP and the national debt -- both of which are slated to rise. Forgetting those two metrics, and looking at the actual numbers, there are no cuts at all and only increases.

Even the dating of the Republican’s balanced budget is ridiculous. So the budget will be fully balanced in 2040? That’s three decades from now. Few of the people in office will still be in office, and many will be dead. To see how viable this is, consider how many political plans of the year 1982 still survive today.

The Republican plan proposes domestic cuts in these gargantuan programs like Social Security and Medicare with nothing specific beyond the old prattle about establishing bi-partisan commissions and sending block grants to the states. There is nothing specific here beyond a numbers-laden pipe dream. No programs are abolished, no benefits are slashed or even trimmed, and although the propagandists claim to attack the culture of spending in Washington, there is not one word about taking on the money-printing machine that made the $14 trillion national debt possible in the first place.

This brings back my earlier observation where...

Stripping away control and spending other people’s money is so addictive that politicians can’t seem to do away with it and would fight heaven and hell to avoid it.

And so it has been.

The next step will be a vote FOR raising the debt ceiling.

Prediction Market Intrade suggests that the odds for raising the debt ceiling by June 2011 seem to be at 75% as of the moment.

The usual, government authorities will raise the spectre of fear of a prospective mayhem (bogeyman) to justify the actions of politicians.

From Marketwatch.com (bold highlights mine)

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Thursday said Congress will act to raise the debt ceiling because they realize the consequences for not doing so. "We're only two years from a cataclysmic financial crisis, and the huge damage to credibility and huge loss of confidence," he said before a Bertelsmann Foundation conference. "The idea that Washington would court that risk is inconceivable." Publicly and privately, Congressional Republicans have indicated they understand the implications of not raising the debt ceiling, Geithner said. Geithner added that markets have confidence that Congress will cut deficits. "The world basically believes that problems are manageable, and the system will solve it," he said

Could Mr. Geithner be utilizing the power of suggestion or is he conditioning the public?

This reminds me of General Douglas MacArthur who once said,

Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear -kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervour -with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.

Of course, a further move will be by the US Federal Reserve who will bring forth QE 3.0 by the latter half of 2011.

Politicians (everywhere) and bureaucrats are nearly cut from the same cloth.

So far, everything seem to jibe.

Global Job Markets: Specialized (Value Added) Work Means Higher Pay

Here is my favourite marketing guru, Seth Godin’s take on cheap labor… (bold emphasis mine)

When something is scarce, it's valuable. MBA's with buzzwords and the ability to raise a million dollars around some web idea are not scarce. They are fungible.

People who understand technology and are willing to bend it to their will, on the other hand, are scarce. They can't be found with a classified ad on Craigslist or in a blind project ad on eLance.

The job of the smart business person isn't to fish in waters where coders are cheap. It's to have enough initiative and vision that the best coders in the world will realize that they'll do better with you than without you.

Business people add value when they make things happen, not when they seek to hire cheap.

Cheapness isn’t everything. Job markets are a function of demand and supply. In today’s climate where global economies have been transitioning from mass production to niche markets, specialization (division of labor and comparative advantage) will be playing a much greater role in shaping job markets.

Courtesy of Kauffman Foundation

Thus, people who specialize will command higher pay. To argue that “cheapness” steal away jobs represent squishy thinking.

Does Statistical Measure of Unpaid Work Accurately Represent Human Values?

Below is another example of statist obsession with statistical aggregates.

The OECD writes, [chart included bold highlights mine]

Most unpaid work is housework. Mexicans do the most, at more than 3 hours per day, and Koreans the least, at 1 hour and 19 minutes. Much of this time is spent cooking. Americans spend the least time cooking each day (30 minutes) and Turks the most in the OECD (74 minutes). Most people spend around 50 minutes a day cooking.

Shopping also makes up a big part of unpaid work. Most people in OECD countries spend 23 minutes a day shopping, with the French spending the most (32 minutes) and the Koreans the least (13 minutes).

The report also attempts to estimate how much unpaid work is worth as a percentage of GDP for the 25 OECD countries for which data are available. It finds that the value of unpaid work is considerable, equivalent to about one-third of GDP in OECD countries, ranging from a low of 19% in Korea to a high of 53% in Portugal.

My comment

First, cooking or washing clothes may not be “paid work”, but this should NOT be seen in such simplistic dimensions. Question is who does the unpaid housework, how is unpaid work financed (how is cooking financed) and how does unpaid work affect productivity?

In the Philippine context, usually household chores are done by either family members or contracted informal labor (household helps). Thus, the productive household members are mostly gainfully employed who finances these “unpaid” jobs. (yes subcontracting to laundry shops or buying from "carinderia" eatery are alternatives but becomes paid work)

Yet unpaid work may not necessarily be measured in money terms because payment can be coursed through non-money benefits (shelter, grocery goods, meals, education and etc...). And monetary stipend may not be based on salaries but on allowances (thus not reflected on government statistics because payments isn’t formal or declared).

In other words, unpaid work isn’t free, it's a form of voluntary exchange coursed through informal means. Instead unpaid work represents division of labor too.

An important point is highlighted by this great video from Hans Rosling, which I earlier posted, which essentially shows of the introduction of the washing machine that has magnified the benefits of division of labor.

Mr. Rosling’s presentation elaborated on the indirect and intangible benefits particularly freeing of invaluable time for the household moms to educate their children, which has eventually enhanced productivity and added to economic growth.

Basically it’s too naive to narrow down “work” to just dollars and cents. There are many other aspects or unseen cost-benefit tradeoffs surrounding human actions. Point is, statists overlook opportunity costs.

Second, if shopping, which could be deemed as a leisure activity, is reckoned as unpaid work, then how about sex, watching tv, sports, fellowship, playing computer/internet games and others..., must they be reckoned as unpaid work too? What differentiates work and leisure?

This just shows that if you like chocolates and I like beer, statist experts will extrapolate these into dollars and cents from which they configure an economic model and subsequently apply political undertones.

This means that if government sees equality as forcing me to have chocolates instead of beer, and on the other hand, forcing you to have beer instead of chocolates then we both achieve equal satisfaction. BS...

The point is statists apply the reductio ad absurdum fallacies in lieu of people’s value preferences or marginal utilities.

The second point is, it’s always their preferences or tastes or ethical virtues that should be upheld...not yours.

Daniel Griswold: Debunking the Belief that Imports and Trade Deficits Are a "Drag on Growth"

Cato's Daniel Griswold rebuts popular myths about trade deficits in the research journal below.

Abstract:

A nearly universal consensus prevails that the goal of U.S. trade policy should be to promote exports over imports, and that rising imports and trade deficits are bad for economic growth and employment.

The consensus creed is based on a misunderstanding of how U.S. gross domestic product is calculated. Imports are not a "subtraction" from GDP. They are merely removed from the final calculation of GDP because they are not a part of domestic production.

Contrary to the prevailing view, imports are not a "leakage" of demand abroad. In the annual U.S. balance of payments, all transactions balance. The net outflow of dollars to purchase imports over exports are offset each year by a net inflow of foreign capital to purchase U.S. assets. This capital surplus stimulates the U.S. economy while boosting our productive capacity.

An examination of the past 30 years of U.S. economic performance offers no evidence that a rising level of imports or growing trade deficits have negatively affected the U.S. economy. In fact, since 1980, the U.S. economy has grown more than three times faster during periods when the trade deficit was expanding as a share of GDP compared to periods when it was contracting. Stock market appreciation, manufacturing output, and job growth were all significantly more robust during periods of expanding imports and trade deficits.

The goal of U.S. trade policy should not be to promote exports at the expense of imports, but to maximize the freedom of Americans to trade goods, services, and assets in the global marketplace.

The Trade-Balance Creed: Debunking the Belief that Imports and Trade Deficits Are a "Drag on Growth", Cato ...

Ranking of Nuclear Accidents, Japan’s Fukushima is Second So Far

Where does the Fukushima nuclear leak stand among the past nuclear power plant accidents?

From the Economist,

JAPAN'S authorities have said that the ongoing problems at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant now justify a rating of 7 on the International Nuclear and Radiological Event Scale (INES), the highest possible. But INES can be confusing: it takes into account many different factors, from the level of radiation released to the effects on the environment and how severely safety systems are stretched. Categories 4-7 are classed as “accidents”, 1-3 as mere “incidents”. The scale is subjective, which makes labelling nuclear incidents as much an art as a science; in theory, at least, it is also logarithmic, meaning that a Level 4 “accident” is in some sense ten times worse than a Level 3 “incident”. Although the Fukushima accident is now rated at the same level as the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, in terms of casualties and effects on the environment, it is far less significant. Our chart presents a selection of nuclear incidents and their ranking on the scale

Federal Reserve’s Pandora’s Box: Some Wives of Wall Street’s Head Honchos Were Loan Beneficiaries Of Bailout Program

Today we seem on a roll with the subject of crony capitalism.

Now we turn to the US Federal Reserve.

Earlier we noted that ally turned adversary Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi had been one of the ‘unexpected’ beneficiaries of the Fed’s post Lehman stabilization programs.

It appears that more controversial recipients are surfacing from the opening of the Fed’s equivalent of the mythical Pandora’s box.

This time wives of some of Wall Street’s head honchos had reportedly been granted with political privileges in the form of ‘bailout’ loans.

From Rolling Stone Magazine’s Matt Tibbi, (bold highlights mine) [hat tip Bob Wenzel]

Now, following an act of Congress that has forced the Fed to open its books from the bailout era, this unofficial budget is for the first time becoming at least partially a matter of public record. Staffers in the Senate and the House, whose queries about Fed spending have been rebuffed for nearly a century, are now poring over 21,000 transactions and discovering a host of outrages and lunacies in the "other" budget. It is as though someone sat down and made a list of every individual on earth who actually did not need emergency financial assistance from the United States government, and then handed them the keys to the public treasure. The Fed sent billions in bailout aid to banks in places like Mexico, Bahrain and Bavaria, billions more to a spate of Japanese car companies, more than $2 trillion in loans each to Citigroup and Morgan Stanley, and billions more to a string of lesser millionaires and billionaires with Cayman Islands addresses. "Our jaws are literally dropping as we're reading this," says Warren Gunnels, an aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. "Every one of these transactions is outrageous."

But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.

Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income…

In August 2009, John Mack, at the time still the CEO of Morgan Stanley, made an interesting life decision. Despite the fact that he was earning the comparatively low salary of just $800,000, and had refused to give himself a bonus in the midst of the financial crisis, Mack decided to buy himself a gorgeous piece of property — a 107-year-old limestone carriage house on the Upper East Side of New York, complete with an indoor 12-car garage, that had just been sold by the prestigious Mellon family for $13.5 million. Either Mack had plenty of cash on hand to close the deal, or he got some help from his wife, Christy, who apparently bought the house with him…

It's hard to imagine a pair of people you would less want to hand a giant welfare check to — yet that's exactly what the Fed did. Just two months before the Macks bought their fancy carriage house in Manhattan, Christy and her pal Susan launched their investment initiative called Waterfall TALF. Neither seems to have any experience whatsoever in finance, beyond Susan's penchant for dabbling in thoroughbred racehorses. But with an upfront investment of $15 million, they quickly received $220 million in cash from the Fed, most of which they used to purchase student loans and commercial mortgages. The loans were set up so that Christy and Susan would keep 100 percent of any gains on the deals, while the Fed and the Treasury (read: the taxpayer) would eat 90 percent of the losses. Given out as part of a bailout program ostensibly designed to help ordinary people by kick-starting consumer lending, the deals were a classic heads-I-win, tails-you-lose investment….

This is the deal of a lifetime. Think about it: You borrow millions, buy a bunch of crap securities and stash them on the Fed's books. If the securities lose money, you leave them on the Fed's lap and the public eats the loss. But if they make money, you take them back, cash them in and repay the funds you borrowed from the Fed. "Remember that crazy guy in the commercials who ran around covered in dollar bills shouting, 'The government is giving out free money!' " says Black. "As crazy as he was, this is making it real."…

In the case of Waterfall TALF Opportunity, here's what we know: The company was founded in June 2009 with $14.87 million of investment capital, money that likely came from Christy Mack and Susan Karches. The two Wall Street wives then used the $220 million they got from the Fed to buy up a bunch of securities, including a large pool of commercial mortgages managed by Credit Suisse, a company John Mack once headed. Those securities were valued at $253.6 million, though the Fed refuses to explain how it arrived at that estimate. And here's the kicker: Of the $220 million the two wives got from the Fed, roughly $150 million had not been paid back as of last fall — meaning that you and I are still on the hook for most of whatever the Wall Street spouses bought on their government-funded shopping spree.

Read the rest here.

Another anecdotal evidence where government’s supposed public service is seemingly a fraud.

Enervate Crony Capitalism: Cut Their Financing

Speaking of crony capitalism, Professor and author Thomas Sowell suggests how to enervate them—cut their financing!

Here is Professor Sowell, (townhall.com) [bold emphasis mine]

Trying to reduce the deficit by cutting spending runs into an old familiar counter-attack. There will be all kinds of claims by politicians and sad stories in the media about how these cuts will cause the poor to go hungry, the sick to be left to die, etc.

My plan would start by cutting off all government transfer payments to billionaires. Many, if not most, people are probably unaware that the government is handing out the taxpayers' money to billionaires. But agricultural subsidies go to a number of billionaires. Very little goes to the ordinary farmer.

Big corporations also get big bucks from the government, not only in agricultural subsidies but also in the name of "green" policies, in the name of "alternative energy" policies, and in the name of whatever else will rationalize shoveling the taxpayers' money out the door to whomever the administration designates, for its own political reasons.

The usual political counter-attacks against spending cuts will not work against this new kind of spending cut approach. How many heart-rending stories can the media run about billionaires who have lost their handouts from the taxpayers? How many tears will be shed if General Motors gets dumped off the gravy train?

It would also be eye-opening to many people to discover how much government money is going into subsidizing all sorts of things that have nothing to do with helping "the poor" or protecting the public. This would include government-subsidized insurance for posh and pricey coastal resorts, located too dangerously close to the ocean for a private insurance company to risk insuring them.

Below is a timely example (hat tip Filipino libertarian colleague Jep Chu) of what Mr. Sowell calls as ‘sad stories in the media’ which projects the image of government as ‘helping the poor and protecting the public’.

The fact is that “subsidizing all sorts of things” signify no less than political propaganda for the benefit of the politically privileged vested interest groups that feeds on government revenues forcibly extracted from the public.

Unfortunately, sad stories sell to irrational voters.

Why Crony Capitalism Pays: The Cojuangco-PCGG-San Miguel Case

If one must understand why the ‘politics of plunder’ remains and will constitute as an important driver of the Philippine political economy all you have to do is to turn to the front page of today’s major newspapers.

The message: Crony capitalism pays!

Key passage from the news.

From the Inquirer, (bold highlights mine)

In their ruling, the justices observed that the government failed to offer clear evidence to prove that Cojuangco amassed his wealth illegally.

For example, the court said the nullification of the writs of sequestration against Cojuangco was valid because in some instances, the PCGG had failed to determine prima facie basis for sequestration.

This is a patent manifestation of the failure of government. The bureaucracy is venal and, either deliberately or inherently, inefficient and inept. And the legal system has been possibly subjected to manipulation by the political class.

As in the acquittal of the alleged culprits of the Vizconde Massacre case, the same legal ploy seem to apply—the letter of the law (technicalities) dominate the spirit of the law (intent) in the adjudication of these cases.

Again I quote the Wikipedia,

The letter of the law versus the spirit of the law is an idiomatic antithesis. When one obeys the letter of the law but not the spirit, one is obeying the literal interpretation of the words (the "letter") of the law, but not the intent of those who wrote the law. Conversely, when one obeys the spirit of the law but not the letter, one is doing what the authors of the law intended, though not adhering to the literal wording.

"Law" originally referred to legislative statute, but in the idiom may refer to any kind of rule. Intentionally following the letter of the law but not the spirit may be accomplished through exploiting technicalities, loopholes, and ambiguous language. Following the letter of the law but not the spirit is also a tactic used by oppressive governments. (bold emphasis on this paragraph mine)

Two, more passage from the adjoining Inquirer article...(bold highlights mine)

In 1975, Marcos authorized the Philippine Coconut Authority, the agency tasked with developing the coconut industry and whose board included businessman Eduardo Cojuangco, to use the funds to buy a bank “for the benefit of the farmers.”

The bank was First United Bank, later renamed United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB). Cojuangco became its president and chief executive officer.

With the PCA and UCPB in their control, Cojuangco and his associates were able to buy firms and mills placed under the Coconut Industry Investment Fund(CIIF), a group of 14 holding companies whose assets included 47 percent of San Miguel Corp. (SMC). These assets were held by UCPB, the CIIF administrator.

This is just an example of the nature of rent seeking activities that emanates from state ‘crony’ capitalism.

From Nobel laureate James Buchanan, (bold emphasis mine)

If the government is empowered to grant monopoly rights or tariff protection to one group, at the expense of the general public or to designated losers, then it follows that potential beneficiaries will compete for the prize, so to speak. And, since by construction, only one group can be rewarded, the resources invested by other groups is wasted. These resources could have been used to produce valued goods and services. Once this basic insight is incorporated into the mind-set of the observer, much of modern politics can only be interpreted as rent-seeking activity

Or as author Frank Chodorov explained (The Rise and Fall of Society p.84) (bold emphasis mine)

in every age political power has lent itself to purposes that are uneconomic and antisocial, that it has never hesitated to purchase support with confiscated property. For the ancients it may be said that they conducted the business in a forthright manner, unadorned with moralisms; the Caesars did not invoke an ideology to cover up the real objective of "bread and circuses/' Today, political preferment and the augmentation of political power are accomplished in the same way—with subsidies of all sorts, paid for by taxpayers—but the business is conducted under a panoply of rectitude. Our politicians do not purchase votes, they advocate "social" programs. It comes to the same thing.

In short, politicians use ‘social programs’ to supposedly deliver public goods (service) supposedly for society’s weal, but eventually end up ‘gaming’ the system for their own personal benefits. Yet people hardly see through such prestidigitation. Worst, local laws can't seem to identify and provide the necessary corrective mechanism (social justice) on this.

This is also working proof of the time consistency of political issues or the capriciousness of public sentiment.

Post EDSA I, the public had passionately been for the pursuit of regaining ill-gotten wealth from ex-President Marcos and his cronies, and that’s the reason for the recovery suit. Apparently time dampened this desire. Legal dilatory tactics thereafter paved way for the clearance of what looks very much like obtaining resources via (Franz Oppenheimer’s) political means.

And that’s why lobbying, backdoor dealing, anti-competitive laws, getting elected into political office (having a political career) and other political artifices in the name of public welfare will be a potent political force in the Philippine society—the political-legal system fundamentally incentivizes these socio-political imbalances.

As libertarian author Albert Jay Nock wrote,

every assumption of State power, whether by gift or seizure, leaves society with so much less power. There is never, nor can there be, any strengthening of State power without a corresponding and roughly equivalent depletion of social power.

Bottom line:

This only goes to show that it’s a fundamental illusion for anyone to believe that elections will change the nature of the government—by putting in place people with so-called ‘virtuousness’.

As the above example show, arbitrary laws and a highly vulnerable and manipulable legal system will undo ‘virtue’. In essence, the problem isn’t about virtue, the laws signify the problem.

The current system rewards those who can effectively game the system via political-legal means. Such reward is an incentive to do more. And that’s why as I keep saying, the more things change, the more they remain the same….

Why Nuclear Power Became Japan’s Energy Priority

Eric Margolis, at the lewrockwell.com, traces Japan’s prioritization of nuclear power as its main source of energy to ‘energy independence’ and the stigma of World War II.

Mr. Margolis writes,

In Japan’s samurai code, an act of supreme bravery occurs when a fighter confronts impossible odds, or knows his death in battle is inevitable, yet still decides to fight for honor’s sake. In samurai lore, this is know as "the nobility of failure."

Japanese history and, of course, World war II, are replete with examples of self-sacrifice and boundless valor in the face of certain defeat.

Brave and resolute as Japanese are, the question remains, why did Japan only 15 years or so after the nuclear horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki decide to build nuclear power plants they knew could be potentially dangerous?

The answer lies in World War II. Japan has no resources, other than rock, wood, water and its industrious people. All raw material to this island nation had to be imported by sea...

After the war, Japan’s leadership concluded their nation had to have energy independence, even if it meant from potentially dangerous nuclear power. Japan must never again be left helpless. Oil was too precious to use for power generation. It had to be stockpiled for strategic use and transportation.

So Japan took a calculated risk with nuclear power in spite of the ingrained fears of its people.

Read the rest here

Restricting Social Mobility Equals Poverty

Economist Bill Easterly commenting on the incidences of ghost towns in the US makes a point where restriction of social mobility leads to impoverishment.

I quote Bill Easterly, (bold highlights mine)

What if we had a law that everybody had to stay in their home state? What if North Dakotans had to stay in North Dakota despite the collapsing economy there? Then wages would collapse and we would have very poor North Dakotans. Happily no one would dream of such a stupid law. Instead we have middle class North Dakotans moving to other places voluntarily, where employers want to hire them voluntarily. And so (former) North Dakotans stay middle class.

For states…but not for countries. We treat migration usually as a non-option if Zambia has an economic decline, so Zambians stay there and get even poorer as the economy declines.

This is the great point made by Lant Pritchett in a classic article and in a CGD book. Why can’t we start treating Zambians like North Dakotans? If their home economy is declining, let them move to other places voluntarily, where employers want to hire them voluntarily. Why do we recognize the right to live wherever you want for North Dakotans and not for Zambians?

I guess the Philippines should be a worthy example.

Had many of our countrymen (kababayan) been prohibited from finding greener pastures around the globe, then we’d be worst off economically considering the relatively unfree political and economic environment that continues to beleaguer us.

That’s why anyone who claims that the exodus of people results to “brain drain” is no less than prescribing poverty for us.

Regional share of Philippine remittances (ADB)

Bottom line:

Freedom should encompass people’s mobility or to move around or migrate in accordance with their perceived interests.

We should allow people to come in, in as much as to go out. Where free markets is about voting with money on products and services, freedom of movement is about voting with the feet.

As Ludwig von Mises wrote, (bold highlights mine)

The principles of freedom, which have gradually been gaining ground everywhere since the eighteenth century, gave people freedom of movement. The growing security of law facilitates capital movements, improvement of transportation facilities, and the location of production away from the points of consumption. That coincides, not by chance, with a great revolution in the entire technique of production and with drawing the entire earth's surface into world trade, The world is gradually approaching a condition of free movement of persons and capital goods. A great migration movement sets in. Many millions left Europe in the nineteenth century to find new homes in the New World, and sometimes in the Old World also. No less important is the migration of the means of production: capital export. Capital and labor move from territories of less favorable conditions of production to territories of more favorable conditions of production.

Policy Divergences: Structural Versus Relations Power

Deutsche Bank’s Emerging Market analyst, Markus Jaeger, explains what I think is a relevant nuance between the role of foreign currency reserve, and one of a national currency (or one that is not)-e.g. US dollar versus Philippine peso or China's yuan.

Mr. Jaeger writes, (bold emphasis mine)

Put differently, the US pursues an economic policy – namely a lax fiscal policy and quantitative easing – it deems to be in its interest and however the EM respond to it is of little consequence to the US. This is a prime example of continued US “structural power”. Structural power is the power of a state to indirectly influence others by controlling the structures within which they must operate – in this instance, the international monetary system. This differs from “relational power”, or the ability of one state to influence another state's behaviour directly in pursuit of specific outcomes. This describes the situation quite accurately, for Washington is not seeking to influence other countries’ policies. It is simply pursuing policies it deems to be in its interest. Meanwhile, the EM have no way of influencing US macro-policy and are therefore left to deal with the QE-driven capital inflows and the implications of rising US government debt.

Some thoughts:

I agree with the essence of the differentiation.

But I think this observation underrates the role played by external influence on US policies. For instance, has Federal Reserve’s QE been aimed solely at ‘jumpstarting aggregate demand’? Or has it been designed to protect the banking system? Or has it been engineered to promote exports? Or possibly all of the above?

Point is: Policymakers can read external goals combined or as part of internal or national interests too. In short, instead of a black and white, gray areas (mixture of internal and external interests) can be assumed to determine policy objectives (The Fed’s loan to Libya’s Gaddafi in 2009 should be an example).

Two, this appears to underscore the Triffin dilemma dynamics—conflicts of interests that may arise from international and domestic objectives from a country whose currency is considered as foreign currency reserve. For example, the US may be applying policies for its own interest but because of its currency reserve status, her policies affect other economies and consequently their policies.

Three, although the implication is that the US has a lopsided influence on the world with its internally driven policies, I think this perspective lacks the perspective of the feedback mechanism as consequence from US policies. Think currency arbitrages (carry trades) or real economic effects of QE-e.g. greater demand for food or oil or other commodities.

Nevertheless, the best evidence that proves or disproves such proposition is if the next bust emanates from Emerging Markets (such as China), then here we should see whether US policies will remain impervious and or unaffected or will adjust accordingly along with economies affected by the EM recession or crisis.

ASEAN Integration: Regional Stock Exchange Website Launched

The path towards the deepening of integration of ASEAN markets and economies has moved one step forward.

ASEAN has launched a website to promote the integration of ASEAN stock markets.

Reports the yahoo,

The www.aseanexchanges.org website launch was celebrated on the sidelines of the 15th ASEAN Finance Ministers Meeting at the Laguna Resort and was attended by the chairman of the meeting -- Indonesian Finance Minister Agus Martowardojo -- and seven chief executive officers (CEOs) of the member stock exchanges.

The ASEAN Exchanges website features a product called "ASEAN Stars", which provides 210 blue chips stocks ranked by "investability" in terms of market capitalization and liquidity and made up of a selection of 30 stocks from each exchange.

"The main focus will be ASEAN's key assets -- the strength and diversity of ASEAN's companies, some of which are the largest and most dynamic companies in the world, including leaders in the banking, finance, telecommunications, commodities and automotive industries," Indonesia Stock Exchange president director Ito Warsito said at the event.

The 30 Indonesian stocks included in the ASEAN Stars come from various sectors, including Astra International (ASII), Adaro Energy (ADRO) Indofood Sukses Makmur (INDF) and state-owned firms such as Bank Mandiri (BMRI), Jasa Marga (JSMR) and Telekomunikasi Indonesia (TLKM).

Shares of firms from other countries promoted through the ASEAN Stars include Malaysia's CIMB Group and Petronas, as well as Singapore's SingTel and Wilmar International.

"Each of these 30 stocks will represent the favor of a particular exchange. Review will be done on a six-month basis in terms of liquidity, size and market capitalization," Gan said, adding that Thomson Reuters, which has thousands of terminals worldwide, would provide market data for the website.

ASEAN had a combined market capitalization of about $1.8 trillion as of January 2011, the eighth highest in the world, with total listed firms numbering over 3,000 companies and a market of more than 538 million people.

This how the nascent website looks...

If the goal is to balance trade and investment flows by reducing dependence on the US—this incorporates the vendor cycling programs of buying US sovereign securities and the implied importation of US monetary policies—then the development of ASEAN financial markets have much more much much room for progress.

The share of some of the major ASEAN members in % to the world stock market capitalization [chart from safehaven.com] reveals of the lack of depth, sophistication and the penetration levels by the local populace in the domestic equity markets which has resulted to the inadequate channeling of savings to investments.

This can also be seen from the region’s share of global market capitalization (2007 chart from Leaps) where ASEAN’s role remain insignificant.

Yet ASEAN has huge foreign exchange reserves which it can use for its development.

(chart from Donghyun Park and Gemma Esther B. Estrada Asian Development Bank Foreign exchange reserve accumulation in the ASEAN-4: challenges, opportunities, and policy options)

Bottom line: This represents more indications that ASEAN (and Asia) have increasingly been adhering to free trade principles which should translate to more progress down the road.

China' Potemkin Cities and Malls

Here are two videos showing China's obsession towards Keynesian GDP spending which has resulted, so far, to 64 million vacant apartments from China's building of 10 new cities every year. (pointer to Israel Curtis, Mises Blog)

This obsession towards achieving statistical GDP from central planning reminds me of two John Maynard Keynes quotes,

The right remedy for the trade cycle is not to be found in abolishing booms and thus keeping us permanently in a semi-slump; but in abolishing slumps and thus keeping us permanently in a quasi boom.

If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with bank-notes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal-mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.

The obvious result has been an ongoing quasi-boom (as Keynes has predicted) but which ultimately will be faced with the restrains from natural the law of economics which equates to a prospective bust (from the Austrian perspective).

The desire to uphold the Keynesian unemployment goals will backfire and result to China's version of today's MENA political crisis.

First video is from Dateline


Second video from AlJazeerah

To quote the great Ludwig von Mises,(bold highlights mine)

There are still teachers who tell their students that “an economy can lift itself by its own bootstraps” and that “we can spend our way into prosperity.” But the Keynesian miracle fails to materialize; the stones do not turn into bread. The panegyrics of the learned authors who cooperated in the production of the present volume merely confirm the editor’s introductory statement that “Keynes could awaken in his disciples an almost religious fervor for his economics, which could be affectively harnessed for the dissemination of the new economics.” And Professor Harris goes on to say, “Keynes indeed had the Revelation.”

There is no use in arguing with people who are driven by “an almost religious fervor” and believe that their master “had the Revelation.” It is one of the tasks of economics to analyze carefully each of the inflationist plans, those of Keynes and Gesell no less than those of their innumerable predecessors from John Law down to Major Douglas. Yet, no one should expect that any logical argument or any experience could ever shake the almost religious fervor of those who believe in salvation through spending and credit expansion.

Moral Grandstanding: The Dumbing Down of TV Viewers

I hardly watch TV (except occasionally for cable movies and international financial sites) and hardly read local newspapers, unless some events warrant for this.

Having to see some online discussions over an alleged impropriety by a local TV host, I was prompted to read today’s headlines.

To my horror, here is a primetime display of sanctimonious virtuousness!

A renowned Filipina international media artist along with a Solon lectured of the “dumbing down of the viewers”.

From the Inquirer,

“The debate is no longer whether it was child abuse or not,” Wilson said, referring to the widely criticized episode of Revillame’s “Willing Willie” show on TV5 that had a 6-year-old boy gyrating like a macho dancer while breaking into tears for a P10,000 cash prize.

“The facts are plain to see. No one with a sense of respect for another human being can dispute that,” Wilson said.

“The discourse now is how we, as Filipinos, as artists involved in the same industry that created Willie Revillame and shows like his, could have allowed this to go on for as long as it has.”

Acclaimed locally and internationally, Wilson has dozens of productions to her name as actress, director and producer, most famously her lead performance alternating with Lea Salonga in the original West End production of “Miss Saigon” in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Wow, see that phrase...“could have allowed this to go on”!

The controversial video can be seen here.

Having seen the above, I am quite sure that this doesn’t represent an isolated incident and that there have been many more of these. It’s just that in the past, these alleged immoral acts may have either been downplayed or ignored.

Here is a movie trailer where children dance the OTSO-OTSO—dance steps plastered with “sexual” undertones. The video can be seen here. But where have the moral censures been then?

What’s my point?

The short of it is that all these reek of political miasma.

First, this looks like more of selective condemnation of what looks like a media norm. Many local songs and dance steps have sexual connotations. And they have been performed in various TV programs or movies by children (as the above).

Two, while one may argue that the controversial incident and the trailer are different, which is technically true, this should even expose what seems as even more duplicitous application morality...Trailers are qua advertisement, i.e. meant to promote or sell to the public goods or services (in this case the movie). In short, one could interpret selling amoral behaviour through comedy cum dance scenes to the public. Selling and providing service are two different functions.

So other media programs have the moral license to do this, while others don’t? Who determines which is moral and which isn’t, the Philippine government, the Solon or Ms. Wilson?

Three, this smacks of the extended legal battle between the TV host Willie Revillame and his former employer the ABS-CBN but this time coursed through the public arena, perhaps involving third parties, predicated on moral issues.

Fourth, dumbing down of audiences isn’t just the work of TV programs but of politicians and their accessories in media, as well as, the political cronies who benefit from the current and previous political economic climate.

Dumbing down translates to more political control, more votes and the political appeasement of the underprivileged masses.

History shows that ancient Roman emperors provided free entertainment via gladiator combats and chariot racing and even gave away free bread as a “good way to keep the people of Ancient Rome happy and content with the way the city was being governed.” Moreover Roman emperors used this as a strategy to “keep happy the many unemployed people in Rome.”

See, dumbing down represents an effective political strategy!

Fifth, we go back to Ms. Wilson’s statements.

Again from the Inquirer

Even news reports on TV, she noted, are now “horrifyingly biased and sensationalist,” while noontime variety shows “exploit women and insult our intelligence” and talk shows have become “intrusive, subjective and tasteless.”

When a wife of a politician and two former politicians perform the role as news anchors, who frames the public (through polls) that the only two policy recourse to high (food and oil prices) inflation is either higher minimum wages or price controls—then in this case, I would agree (hands down) with Ms. Wilson, that this represents as “horrifyingly biased and sensationalist”-dumbing down of the audience.

But in contrast to her I wouldn’t even dare imply to impose political control using my sense of morality, or lecture them for their flawed brand of economics, or castigate the gullible audience or voters for buying into them.

That’s because I understand that these grandstanding political demagogues are mostly guided or incentivized by political ambitions (public choice) and the desire to generate self esteem (social signaling) rather than doing genuine social service (which is the work of entrepreneurs).

I would rather say that competition to provide information and knowledge should eventually help determine the truth and expose on the falsehood and pretentiousness from such media based demagoguery.

I would suggest that if Ms. Wilson so indeed desires to help, she ought to put money where her mouth is. And since she is a show producer, she could provide the necessary competition against these inferior, degenerate and manipulative shows rather than just pontificate.

The Filipino consumers, despite their dumbing down, will either eventually see the merits of her quixotic actions or punish her with financial losses.

Ms. Wilson’s comments represents a sweeping indictment not only of the industry but as well as the millions of patrons of the “horrifyingly biased and sensationalist”, “exploit women and insult our intelligence” and “intrusive, subjective and tasteless” shows. She had been unabashed to even say that these shows “insult our intelligence” which seems self-explanatory. (my household help watches some of these shows, so when I have lunch I happen to take a glimpse of these programs, especially the part where girls in skimpy outfits do their renditions--thus, I am partly guilty of Ms. Wilson's accusations)

So whether you agree with her or not, one thing is for sure, she grandstands on her ethical virtues as somewhat superior to the masses (yeah this includes me).

Finally, political grandstanding could be construed as a normal action for politicians.

So when we read from the same article where a Solon proposed that “top ad spenders should sponsor more quiz shows rather than song-and-dance programs that lure in millions of viewers with hefty cash prizes”, I would suggest that this Solon should put up her own private advertisement agency and try to see whether her idealism will be rewarded financially.

Otherwise forcing firms to adapt on what they see as moral, in contrast to opinion of the consumers, is similar to forcing them to close and tantamount to penalizing the economy just to impose their sense of idealism.

In short, restricting people to avail of the option to choose is a form of “slavery”.

The above events are best encapsulated by this poignant and pertinent quote from Michael Bakunin (1867) Power Corrupts The Best (bold highlights mine)

“Nothing is more dangerous for man's private morality than the habit of command. The best man, the most intelligent, disinterested, generous, pure, will infallibly and always be spoiled at this trade. Two sentiments inherent in power never fail to produce this demoralisation; they are: contempt for the masses and the overestimation of one's own merits.”