Bank criminals sail away on their yachts

Over the next few days I will be involved in transferring some of the major IT infrastructure for my research centre from our Newcastle office to our Melbourne office. This is the first stage of our plan to virtualise our server capacity – reducing costs, making it easier to manage, and giving us more independence in our new multi-campus structure. Sounds like fun doesn’t it. Not! It also wasn’t much fun reading the documents published by the UK Financial Services Authority (FSA) and the US Department of Justice last week concerning their investigations into the UBS LIBOR manipulation scandal. We read of widespread criminality and a total disregard for ethics and values. The authorities have, however, seen fit to go soft on the bank and will prosecute only a few it seems when many were involved. The point is that this is not the isolated act of a rogue trader or two. Criminality and greed is embedded in the culture of the financial sector and only major reform will get rid of it. That reform should start with the withdrawal of the license of USB to operate and then progressively the outlawing of the derivatives market and the scaling back of what banks can legally be involved in. Such major reform will not happen but until we get close to it the bad boys will continue to run loose.

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Win-win – US budget deficit expands and supports growth and private saving

The Sydney Morning Herald carried an AFP story today (November 14, 2012) – US deficit hits $120b as fiscal cliff nears – which reported the latest US Treasury Department figures which showed that “the US budget deficit rose 22 per cent in October from a year ago, to $US120 billion ($A115.56 billion), as spending far outpaced revenue”. At which point I thought – how lucky the American people are that the Government deficit is still expanding and supporting growth unlike the expanding deficits in Europe which are expanding because of a lack of growth. It is an astounding achievement for the US people. Unfortunately all the signs are that the American polity doesn’t actually understand that their in-fighting, which has allowed the deficits to continue growing, has been good for the nation. Had they actually cut the deficits or failed to pass the debt limit extension, the US economy would be in the doldrums just like Europe. The problem now is that the political debate will reach some conclusion pretty soon and the harbingers of doom are growing stronger. But for the time being with the US budget deficit expanding and supporting growth and private saving it is a win-win.

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Republican agenda – simple and venal

One of the continuing myths that economists have been responsible for is the notion of – Trickle-down economics or supply-side economics. The popular version of notion is that if there are tax cuts for high income earners and the wealth (reducing capital gains taxes) then saving and investment will rise and the economic growth and productivity growth that ensues benefits even the lowest income earner. In the current debate about the so-called “fiscal cliff” in the US, the Republicans clearly want lower marginal tax rates for the high-income earners while calling for reform to entitlements, which benefit the lowest income recipients. There are countless statements from conservative and not-so-conservative politicians and commentators that cutting the highest marginal tax rates is the best way to stimulate growth. The only problem is that the evidence does not support the claims. Without an evidential basis, the real agenda of the conservatives then becomes transparent. They want to cut entitlements at the bottom end of the income distribution and pocket more at the top end. It is really as simple and as venal as that.

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Some images from the US election

One of things that is now clear from the US election is that the rabid, religious and not-so-religious right in the US blew it. They had all the media, all the cash, yet still couldn’t pull it off. Here are three images that make me laugh and tell me a story about how the extreme right in the US have more or less shot themselves in the foot. They should have supported the ban on guns after all!

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New President but old narrative

Obviously the big deal today is the US election result. My distant (being in Australia) and relatively disinterested (a pox on all of them) view is that the conservatives (GOP) should continue to foster links with the Tea Party and particularly senators and would-be senators who think women have a choice in rape so that the party continues to lose traction with the changing demography in the US and march off into oblivion. The other conservatives (the donkeys) won because the motor car industry is still operating and because the elephants in the room were so bad. The commentary on Australian TV today (one of my computers in my office is following the results even though I am “disinterested” :-]) has become obsessed with the “fiscal cliff” with all the experts appearing demonstrating their vast ignorance about macroeconomics. An ex-federal Opposition leader (failed) in Australia (and a former professor of economics) just said that the US deficit and debt is reaching European proportions, which tells you that he is either deliberately choosing to mislead the viewers or doesn’t know the difference between a currency-issuer (the US) and a currency-user (Eurozone nations). The election result will probably not change much. The political impasse is saving the US economy at present – the deficit is still flowing each day and supporting some growth.

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The US labour market has improved but more stimulus is required

On Tuesday I provided some analysis in this blog – US labour market is in a deplorable state – of the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Situation release for September 2012. Today, I add some more calculations and analysis that I didn’t get time to write up for that blog. The UK Guardian article (October 17, 2012) – US jobs data reveals economy is bouncing back strongly from recession – would appear, on first appearances (comparing titles), to be at odds with the message I imparted in the Tuesday blog. But on closer inspection you will see that the message is consistent across both pieces of analysis. And what I provide today will bring that concordance into relief.

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US labour market is in a deplorable state

Last week, upon the release of the latest – BLS Employment Situation – for September 2012, which showed a drop in the official unemployment rate of 0.3 percentage points, one of the big corporate noters in the US – one Jack Welch tweeted (October 5, 2012 at 10:35 PM) “Unbelievable jobs numbers … these Chicago guys will do anything … can’t debate so change numbers”. It was clear what his meaning was in the build up to the Presidential election in November. He wanted to impugn the integrity of the President (Chicago guy) and more worryingly, the reputation of the workers at the (excellent) Bureau of Labor Statistics. Not only was his comment revealing of his total ignorance of the way these surveys are designed, framed, conducted and then processed but nearly a week later, after being taken to the cleaners by various critics, he later tried to rationalise his ignorance in a Wall Street Journal article (October 11, 2012) – I Was Right About That Strange Jobs Report. The problem is that while his tactics are questionable and his analysis poor – the bottom line is that the US labour market is in a deplorable state.

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The brightest minds can be so dumb in particular circumstances

Its late Sunday afternoon in London as I write this (but already early morning in Australia) – so this is Monday’s blog – I have a busy work day tomorrow. I have been reading about an interesting debate in network theory over the last few days. I was familiar with the debate when it surfaced and have been following it off and on since. It provides a classic example of how the brightest minds can be so dumb in particular circumstances. It also provides a way of understanding how my own profession functions and might also clarify for regular readers of my blog the way I consider my colleagues. Gaining a PhD generally takes some advanced intelligence (not to mention application). But that intelligence can be so specific and not preclude attempts to apply the knowledge too broadly and most importantly to areas where applicability is impossible. Counting how many angels on a pin head is a highly complicated and sophisticated area of analysis but it has no resonance in the real world. Anyone who thinks it does is dumb.

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The myth of compassionate deficit reduction

I was going to write about last week’s ECB decision to purchase unlimited volumes of government debt which means that any private bond trader that tries to take a counter-position against any Eurozone government will lose. It means that the central bank can set yields at wherever it wants including zero. It means that all the mainstream economists are wrong if they claim that deficits drive up interest rates to the point that governments become insolvent because the private bond markets will refuse to purchase their debt. I will write about that tomorrow as I have some number crunching to do. But today – a related story – the myth that there is such a thing as a “good” budget deficit reduction when private spending is insufficient to maintain full employment. That should occupy us for a few thousand words.

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US unemployment is due to a lack of jobs whatever else you think

I read an interesting study today from the Brookings Institute (published August 29, 2012) – Education, Job Openings, and Unemployment in Metropolitan America – which aims to provide US policy makers “with a better sense of the specific problems facing metropolitan labor markets”. The paper concludes that “the fall in demand for goods and services has played a stronger role in recent changes in unemployment” than so-called structural issues (skills mismatch etc). This is an important finding and runs counter to the trend that has emerged in the policy debate which suggests that governments are now powerless to resolve the persistently high unemployment. The simple fact is that governments have the capacity to dramatically reduce unemployment and provide opportunities to the least educated workers who are languishing at the back of the supply queue in a highly constrained labour market. The only thing stopping them is the ideological dislike or irrational hatred of direct public sector job creation. Meanwhile, the potential of millions of workers is wasted every day. Sheer madness!

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