Friday, June 22, 2012

Conservative Senator Doug Finley is Full of It

Conservative Senator Doug Finley "It was a big-government approach that spent European welfare states into massive debt in the first place," http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/second-reading/europe-needs-to-take-responsibility-for-its-own-mistakes/article4362749/

Doug Finley has blue eyes, but they appear brown because he is so full of shit.

The notion that the European "debt crisis", which began as a banking and currency crisis and is now becoming all three, is proof that the welfare state is unaffordable is absurd.

Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway: The right never seems to want to address just how well Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are doing when it comes to debt. In terms of per capita spending and or in terms of government spending per GDP all 4 can be considered welfare states on steroids. Yet, Denmark has a net debt as a percentage of GDP of 1, Sweden -15 (Yes its assets are greater than its liabilities), Finland -57, and Norway -156. Canada has net debt to GDP ratio of 32.

Greece: Greece has never had an extensive welfare state. Government spending as percentage of GDP was slightly higher than Canada's was in 2006 and their 2006 rate is lower than what ours is now. Furthermore, as Greece is and always has been an economic minnow, in terms of per capita government spending Greece does not even register. Claims that Greeks are southern European Swedes is as false as Kevin O'leary Don Cherry quality rants about Greece being a bunch of lazy lay abouts that are being bailed out by hard working Germans. Prior to crisis your average Greek worker worked nearly 700 hours more per year than the average German worker. They also worked far more hours than Canadian workers.

Ireland: If Doug Finely had an ounce of intellectual honesty he would have tried to explain away the Irish situation. After all, prior to the down turn Ireland was a darling of the right. It had low corporate tax rates and was rated high on the Heritage foundation's "economic freedom" index. However, Ireland had a huge real estate bubble and when it burst, the Irish government transferred mountains of private bank debt onto public accounts. As a result, Ireland's gross debt GDP ratio went from 25% in 2007 to 108% last year. It should be noted that earlier on in the crisis, the right also lauded Ireland for its austerity program, but has since moved on various Baltic states due to no sign of a recovery in Ireland.

Spain: The Spanish were running surpluses prior to the down turn. Indeed, Zapatero's government ran a surplus in his first 3 years in office and in 2007 a surplus of 23.2 billion Euro was the biggest in the Euro zone. Spain's debt to GDP ratio was not a problem either. Spain's gross debt to GDP ratio was almost half of what it was in Canada in 2007. Spending did increase under Zapatero, but at a rate no more than under the previous regime. Government spending as percentage of GDP remained unchanged between 1999 and 2008. As for government spending as percentage of GDP, it was far less than any other major European nation and, I might add, less than it was in Canada.

Spain's deficit problem was not the cause of the crisis there. It was consequence of it. Like Ireland, Spain had a massive real estate bubble and in 2008 it also burst. This created the perfect storm. Hundreds of thousands quickly lost their jobs and began collecting unemployment insurance (800,000 Spanish lost their jobs in first three months of 2009), government revenues collapsed and most important of all Spain's banks began to fail. Mountains of private debt was transferred onto the public balance sheet and this trend shows no signs of abating. Spain's recent decision to ask the Troika for an additional 125 billion euros was not so it could shore up public accounts but rather so it could put yet more public money into shoring up its banks. To add insult to injury much of Spain's growth in the boom years was fueled by huge influx of foreign capital from the center of Europe. Spain, like all of the so called PIIGS, ran a massive capital accounts deficit. When things began to go south and Spanish credit markets began to seize, that capital was repatriated.

Of course, what separates Spain and Ireland and other Euro Zone countries crippled by collapse of the real estate market from the US and UK is that the latter still have monetary sovereignty and the former do not. Spain and Ireland can not reduce interest rates, devalue their currency and revert to quantitative easing. They surrendered their monetary sovereignty to the ECB and the ECB has done a terrible job managing the crisis. The ECB was slow to lower interest rates and they have only allowed one round of quantitative easing. In addition, the ECB's unwillingness to let inflation in the Euro Zone and Germany in particular to rise above 2%, mean that the only option open to Spain and the other PIIGS in lieu of a currency devaluation is to try to deflate their way to competitiveness. Not only is such a strategy unlikely to work for a whole host of reasons, deflation makes the debt crisis worse much worse. Spain's lack of options coupled with ECB's abysmal record, have investors fearing that Spain will eventually throw up its hands and do what Greeks are bound to do, viz., leave the Euro. As a resurrected Peseta is likely to quickly plummet in value, a decision to leave the Euro Zone would surely mean a sovereign default. What all this means is that while both the US and UK have deficit to GDP numbers that are as equally high or higher than in Spain and both have debt to GDP ratios that are far higher, both the US and UK can borrow at record low rates and well below the rate of inflation and Spain is forced to borrow at just below 7%.

Monday, June 18, 2012

For Canadians politics is a family affair

Voters generally do not judge a policy on its merits. Many do not have the time nor training to look at this or that issue objectively. This is no moral failing on their part. Voters have jobs, families and other interests. As the New Yorker's Louis Menand exclaimed, Plato had it wrong. More than a half century of work on voting behavior shows that the vast vast majority of voters do not a have a clue. Humankind is the unpolitical animal.

No do not get me wrong. Policy does still matter. It is just does not matter in ways that the pundits might think. Policy matters, for example, in so far as it is seen as a confirmation of a particular narrative about a political candidate or party. Take the NEP. More than a few pundits have claimed that the NEP sank the Liberals in Western Canada. The claim is ridiculous on its face. It was the fact that the Liberal vote collapsed in Western Canada in 1979 that paved the way for the NEP politically and not the other way around. The NEP was introduced after the 1980 election. The Liberals took 1 seat in the three most western provinces in 1979 election and 0 in 1980. The source of the collapse was the more emphasis Trudeau placed on individual rights and a commitment to linguistic equality the more the rest of the country, particularly the West, resented the Liberals' inability to put a stop to bill 178 and and 101 and its willingness to make special accommodations for Quebec. Quebec's Official Language Act spelled doom for the Liberals in Western Canada from the mid 70s until collapse of the Progressive Conservatives in 1993. To put in quaintly, Western voters reacted in much the same way a an aggrieved son or daughter might react to their sibling getting preferential treatment. As the years went by many of the initial grievances were forgotten, and the NEP, which had little impact outside of Alberta and was originally felt as insult to injury, grew into a cause that it never was.

Of course, Western Canada was not the only aggrieved offspring. Here too the origins Liberal misfortune is misattributed. The notion that somehow Trudeau era federalism was increasingly unpopular in Quebec is an effect posited as cause well after the fact. Indeed, that Trudeau era federalism was incompatible with Mulroney's soft sovereignty was always beside the point. Trudeau took 74 out of 75 seats in the 1980 election and 68.2% of the vote. He was immensely popular in Quebec and beyond anything else Trudeau had the complete trust of Quebecers. Quebecers had always believed that, love him or hate him, Trudeau and the Liberal party would always fight to create a place for the French language and culture inside Canada. With the signing of the Kitchen Accord, Trudeau and greater extent his party lost that trust and with that the Liberal party lost their strangle hold on Quebec forever.

Now even though Mulroney was the primary beneficiary of the ridiculously named "Night of the Long Knives" and an aggrieved Western Canada, Mulroney, nevertheless, learned nothing from Trudeau's troubles as he pressed forward with the Charlottetown Accord. He figured that he could promise Quebecers that he would right Trudeau's wrong and still keep Western Canada happy by promising its provincial elites the moon. He was spectacularly wrong. Western Canada was never going to concede that Quebec was ever wronged yet alone deserving of special treatment and that is precisely what Quebecers wanted. 56.6% of Quebecers, 60.2% Albertans and 68.3% of British Colombians rejected the Charlottetown Accord. More importantly for the PC party, they went from taking 49 out of 63 seats in 1984 in Western Canada to taking 0 in 1993 and from taking 63 of 75 seats in Quebec in 1988 to taking 1 in 1993.

Judging by John Tory's ill fated proposal to use public monies to fund religious education, Canadian politicians still have not learned that Canadian voters judge the fairness of how goods are distributed and or how a particular group is treated by reference paternal and maternal maximums.

The Liberals would do particularly well to understand this. Winning elections is not about who can pander to the most interest groups and minorities. It is about employing policies and rhetoric that matches up with voters entrenched understanding of paternal and maternal maximums that guide people's sense of fairness. This is what made the Liberals' earlier emphasis on universality such a success and their retreat to the particular (e.g., equity, collective rights, and, whether in theory or in practice, asymmetric federalism) such a marked failure.

Liberals can start by demanding that each riding within in each province contain an equal number of people and viciously attack any body that says otherwise. Juxtapose the riding of Labrador (26,364) and St John's East (88,002), Kenora (64,291) and Oak Ridges - Markham (228,997) , Miramichi (53,844) and Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe (89,334), and Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing (77,961) and Vanughn (154,206). Hold up the former in each pair as an affront to democracy and the latter as the aggrieved party.

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Welfare State and Europe's debt Crisis

The European "debt crisis", which began as a banking and currency crisis and is now becoming all three, is said to prove that the welfare state is unaffordable. Greece, of all places, is cited as proof of concept. The problem is that Greece never had an extensive welfare state. Government spending as percentage of GDP was slightly higher than Canada's was in 2006 and their 2006 rate is lower than what ours is now. Furthermore, as Greece is and always has been an economic minnow, in terms of per capita government spending Greece does not even register. Claims that Greeks are southern European Swedes is as false as Kevin O'leary Don Cherry quality rants about Greece being a bunch of lazy lay abouts that are being bailed out by hard working Germans. Prior to crisis your average Greek worker worked nearly 700 hours more per year than the average German worker.

Meanwhile, the right never seems to want to address just how well Sweden, Finland, Norway and Denmark are doing when it comes to debt. In terms of per capita spending and or in terms of government spending per GDP all 4 can be considered welfare states on steroids. Yet, Denmark has a net debt as a percentage of GDP of 1, Sweden -15 (Yes its assets are greater than its liabilities), Finland -57, and Norway -156. Canada has net debt to GDP ratio of 32.

Friday, June 08, 2012

It is first and foremost a Currency Crisis

The Canadian media have a knack for coming up with wrong headline to describe a crisis or scandal. Two recent examples come readily to mind. The so called robo call scandal was not about the legality of robocalls at all. It was about misdirecting voters. Some of those misdirections were in the form of robo calls. Others were not. It should have been called the misdirection scandal.

However, what really irks me is the media taking to calling the currency and bank capitalization crisis in Europe as being a sovereign debt crisis. The origins of the current crisis are not European fiscal policy. Full stop. Greece does not count; its economy is tiny fraction of the overall European economy. No, the US was not the only real estate bubble to pop in 2008. Ireland and Spain, for example, had far bigger bubbles and when their respective bubbles burst their economies and banking sectors were laid to waste. As elsewhere, Ireland and Spain sought to recapitalize their banks on the public dime. (It is a shame that so little attention has been paid to the fact that since 2008 colossal sums of private debt -- by far the largest in history -- have found their way onto public accounts. ) Ireland's decision to bail out their banks, for instance is by far and away the biggest reason why its debt to GDP ratio has gone from 25% in 2007 to 108% last year.

Of course, what separates Spain and Ireland and other Euro Zone countries crippled by collapse of the real estate market from the US and UK is that the latter still have monetary sovereignty and the former do not. For you see, when the economy is in a crapper there are a number of things governments can do with respect to monetary policy. Most notably they can reduce interest rates, devalue their currency and they can print more money (so called quantitative easing). None of these things is open to the Spanish and Irish governments. They surrendered their monetary sovereignty to the ECB and the ECB has done a terrible job managing the crisis. The ECB was slow to lower interest rates and they have only allowed one round of quantitative easing. So while both the US and UK have deficit to GDP numbers that are as equally high or higher than in Spain and both have debt to GDP ratios that are far higher, both the US and UK can borrow at record low rates and well below the rate of inflation and Spain is forced to borrow at just below 6%.

Given Germany's unwillingness to let inflation in the Euro Zone and Germany in particular to rise above 2%, the only option open to Spain and the other PIIGS is to try to deflate their way to competitiveness. With the exception of Ireland and possibly Italy, this is not likely to work. Spanish workers, for example, already earn far less than German and French workers as it is. Spain needs to develop a more educated workforce and improve its capital stock to truly compete with Germany. This is not likely to happen in the current environment.

Deflation also makes the debt crisis worse much worse. The cruel irony is this in turn feeds back into the banking crisis. As European countries sank more and more money into bailing out the banks their ability to handle these increased debt loads in the absence of monetary sovereignty has imperilled their ability to pay down debt owed to the banks and to otherwise recapitalize them. Spain can not afford an additional 100 to 125 billion dollars needed to recapitalize its banks and so has asked the Troika for help. God knows what will happen if they so no.

Investors have long worried that Spain is going to decide that things are so bad it might as well leave the Euro. The Spanish might soon agree. This in turn would surely mean defaulting on its debts owed to central European banks.

Rocco Rossi is Wrong

The notion that the Spanish "socialist" government spent "well beyond its means" is silly. http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/full-comment/blog.html?b=fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/06/07/rocco-rossi-the-human-cost-of-the-eurozone-crisis The Spanish were running surpluses prior to the down turn. Indeed, Zapatero's government ran a surplus in his first 3 years in office and in 2007 a surplus of 23.2 billion Euro was the biggest in the Euro zone. Spain's debt to GDP ratio was not a problem either. Spain's gross debt to GDP ratio was almost half of what it was in Canada in 2007. Spending did increase under Zapatero, but at a rate no more than under the previous regime. Government spending as percentage of GDP remained unchanged between 1999 and 2008. As for government spending as percentage of GDP, it was far less than any other major European nation and slightly less than it was in Canada.

Spain's deficit problem was not the cause of the crisis there. It was consequence of it. Spain had a massive real estate bubble and in 2008 it burst. This created the perfect storm. Hundreds of thounsands quickly lost their jobs and began collecting unemployment insurance (800,000 Spanish lost their jobs in first three months of 2009), government revenues collapsed and most important of all Spain's banks began to fail. Mountains of private debt was transferred onto the public balance sheet. In fact, Spain's 4th largest bank is nothing but bad private debts backed by the government. To add insult to injury much of Spain's growth in the boom years was fueled by huge influx of foreign capital from the center of Europe. Spain, like all of the so called PIIGS, ran a massive capital accounts deficit. When things began to go south and Spanish credit markets began to seize, that capital was repatriated.

Now, when the economy is in a crapper there are a number of things governments can do with respect to monetary policy. Most notably they can reduce interest rates, devalue their currency and they can print more money (so called quantitative easing). None of these things is open to the Spanish government. They surrendered their monetary sovereignty to the ECB and the ECB has done a terrible job managing the crisis. The ECB was slow to lower interest rates, even tried to rise them last spring and they have only allowed one round of quantitative easing. It should be noted that since the downturn deficits and or debt have proved to be a lousy predictor of bond yeilds. For example, both the US and Britian have deficit to GDP numbers that are as equally high or higher than in Spain, both have debt to GDP ratios that are far higher, but both can borrow at record low rates and well below the rate of inflation. Bank capitalization, unemployment and a lack of monetary sovereignty have proved to be far better predictors.

Given Germany's unwillingness to let inflation in the Euro Zone and Germany in particular to rise above 2%, the only option open to Spain is to try to deflate its way to competitiveness. This is not likley to work. Spanish workers already earn far less than German and French workers as it is. Spain needs to develop a more educated workforce and improve its capital stock to truly compete with Germany. This is not likely to happen in the current environment. Deflation also makes the debt crisis worse much worse.

It is thus not a surprise that Spanish yields are rising and that it can not afford a further 60 to 90 billion Euros to recapitalize its banks. The ECB is asleep at the wheel and more than anything else investors are worried that Spain is going to decide that things are so bad it might as well leave the Euro. This in turn would surely mean defaulting on its debts.