CEO pay trends in Australia are unjustifiable on any reasonable grounds

The latest report from the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors released on Thursday (August 24, 2017) – CEO Pay in ASX200 Companies: 2016 – shows how unfair and unsustainable the income distribution is in Australia. While there has been moderation in the growth of CEO pay after the ‘greed is good’ binge leading up to the GFC, the managerial class in Australia has still enjoyed real growth in pay at a time when the average worker is enduring either flat to negative growth in pay. Further, overall economic growth in Australia is being driven by increased non-government indebtedness as real wages growth (what there is of it) lags well behind productivity growth. And, at the same time, the Federal Government is intent on pursuing an austerity policy stance. All these trends are similar to the dynamics we experienced in the lead-up to the GFC. They are unsustainable. A major shift in income distribution away from capital towards workers has to occur before a sustainable future is achieved. The indicators are that there is no pressure for that to occur.

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The Weekend Quiz – August 26-27, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Central banks still funding government deficits and the sky remains firmly above

There was an article in the Financial Times last week (August 16, 2017) – Central banks hold a fifth of their governments’ debt – which seemed to think there was a “challenge” facing policymakers in “unwinding assets after decade of stimulus”. The article shows how central banks around the world have been buying huge quantities of government (and private) bonds and holding them on their balance sheets. Apparently, these asset holdings are likely to cause the banks headaches. I don’t see it that way. The central banks, in question, could write the debt off any time they chose with no significant consequence. Why they don’t is the question rather than whether they will become insolvent if the values crash (they won’t) or whether the yields will skyrocket if they sell them back into the non-government sector (they won’t). Last week (August 15, 2017), the US Department of Treasury and the Federal Reserve Board put out their updated data on Foreign Holders of US Treasury Securities. Other relevant data was also published which helps us trace the US Federal Reserve holdings of US government debt. Overall, the US government holds about 40 per cent of its own total outstanding debt – split between the intergovernmental agencies (27.6 per cent) and the US Federal Reserve Bank (12.4 per cent). In some quarters, the US central bank has been known to purchase nearly all the change in total debt. That folks, is what we might call Overt Monetary Financing and the sky hasn’t fallen in yet as a consequence.

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When neo-liberal masquerades as anti-establishment

Regular readers will know I was doing some speaking engagements in New Zealand a few weeks ago. Please read my blogs – Travelling all day today but here is something to watch and listen to and Reflections on a visit to New Zealand – for more coverage of that visit. New Zealand is in the midst of a national election campaign and it seems that one of the aspiring parties – The Opportunities Party (TOP) – which is trying to carve out a niche for itself as an ‘anti-establishment’ party in opposition to neo-liberalism – obviously determined that the Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) message that I introduced many progressive New Zealanders to during my visit threatened their own credibility (which is a reasonable perception). So, to kill off the threat TOP went on the attack, although as you will read they found it impossible producing a credible critique of MMT and still maintain their alleged anti-neoliberal stance. Whatever, I would hope not too many New Zealand voters get lulled into believing that TOP is somehow a progressive force. Their macroeconomic narrative is strewn with neo-liberal falsehoods that are like neon-signs advertising their roots!

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The Weekend Quiz – August 19-20, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Australia – real wages growth zero and the rip-off of workers continues

When the Australian Bureau of Statistics released its latest wages data in May (for the March quarter) we learned that real wages were falling as a result of nominal wages failing to keep pace with the modest inflation rate. Today (August 16, 2017), the ABS released the – Wage Price Index, Australia – for the June-quarter 2017. For the sixth consecutive quarter, annual growth in wages has recorded its lowest level since the data series began in the December-quarter 1997. Nominal wages growth in Australia was just 1.9 per cent in annual terms and equal to the inflation rate of 1.9 per cent. So on the back of real wage cuts in the March-quarter, workers enjoyed zero real wages growth in the June-quarter. This is in the context of on-going productivity growth, which means that the profit share in national income rose again as real unit labour costs plunged. But employment growth also remains flat. This represents a major rip-off for workers. The flat wages trend is also intensifying the pre-crisis dynamics, which saw private sector credit rather than real wages drive growth in consumption spending. Further, the forward estimates for fiscal outcomes provided by the Australian government are now not achievable, given the flat wages growth. There is no way the tax receipts will rise in line with the projections, which assumed much stronger wages and employment growth than will occur under current austerity-type fiscal settings.

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Japan is different, right? Wrong! Fiscal policy works

Japan is different, right? Japan has a different culture, right? Japan has sustained low unemployment, low inflation, low interest rates, high public deficits and high gross public debt for 25 years, but that is cultural, right? Even the mainstream media is starting to see through the Japan is different narrative as we will see. Yesterday (August 14, 2017), the Cabinet Office in Japan published the preliminary – Quarterly Estimates of GDP – which showed that the Japanese economy is growing strongly and has just posted the 9th quarter of positive annual real GDP growth. Private consumption and investment is strong, the public sector continues to underpin growth with fiscal deficits and real wages are growing. The Eurozone should send a delegation to Tokyo but then all they would learn is that a currency-issuing government that doesn’t fall into the austerity obsession promoted by many economists (including those in the European Commission) can oversee strong growth and low unemployment. Simple really. The Japan experience is interesting because it demonstrates how the reversal in fiscal policy can have significant negative and positive effects in a fairly short time span, whereas monetary policy is much less effective in influencing expenditure.

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Jacques Delors – a failed leader not a champion of a prosperous Europe

It is amazing how history is revised when it is convenient. It is also amazing how the same events, that from my perspective are rather clear, can be diametrically interpreted by others, who want to run a different agenda. A good example of these phenomena can be found in a recent UK Guardian article (August 11, 2017) – Jacques Delors foresaw the perils of austerity. How we need his wisdom now. When I saw the headline I thought it must have been an article seeking to elicit some sort of deep irony. Jacques Delors – perils of austerity – wisdom – all in the same title. Ridiculous. Through the lens I view the work of Jacques Delors I can only see the abandonment of a progressive social vision, the unnecessary surrender to neoliberalism, and then, a bit later, as an inevitable consequence of these shifts – the disastrous and dysfunctional creation of the Eurozone with all its embedded and destructive austerity biases. The unfortunate fact is that the UK Guardian article was deadly serious. Oh dear!

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The Weekend Quiz – August 12-13, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Falling enrolments in mainstream economics programs is a desirable outcome

If you have had the misfortune to study economics formally at university then you will recall sitting through endless and tedious lectures where the instructor asserted some superior knowledge about psychology and human behaviour. If you had combined the economics study with studies in psychology and sociology, you would have soon realised that what was being taught in your economics course was total nonsense. There was an article in the Fairfax press recently (August 6, 2017) – Crisis in high school economics a threat to national wellbeing – ruing the declining enrolments in secondary school economics programs. The point is that these courses are typically more damaging than useful and the contention of the journalist that we are reducing the quality of the economic debate as a result of less people studying economics is problematic. The typical economics program is simple indoctrination into a set of neoliberal principles that allow poor policy to continue despite it delivering disastrous outcomes. There is a crying need for more economic and financial literacy, but that requires an entirely different approach to be adopted rather than jamming more kids into the existing courses and having them come out dangerously brain dead.

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US labour market – improves again in July

Shonk is an Australian/NZ slang word to describe someone engaged in shonky behaviour, which the Oxford Dictionary describes as being behaviour that is “Dishonest, unreliable, or illegal, especially in a devious way”. So a shonk means a “dishonest person; swindler or con artist” and while intent is implied it doesn’t have to be conscious action (note the inclusion of the descriptor “unreliable”). It could just mean stupidity or ignorance that leads to shonky performance. I will come back to that topic soon. On August 4, 2017, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their latest labour market data – Employment Situation Summary – July 2017 – which showed that total non-farm employment from the payroll survey rose by a relatively healthy 209,000 in July. The weak result for May now seems to have been a blip in the data. The Labour Force Survey data showed that employment rose by 345 thousand in July but was still not large enough an increase to offset the rise in the labour force (349 thousand), and as a consequence, official unemployment rose by 4 thousand. The official unemployment rate was stable though at 4.4 per cent. There are still 6.98 million unemployed persons in the US. There is still a large jobs deficit remaining and other indicators suggest the labour market is still below where it was prior to the crisis. Further, the bias towards low-pay and below-average pay jobs continues.

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The Weekend Quiz – August 5-6, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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The Weekend Quiz – July 29-30, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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Hungary and Poland would be insane joining the Eurozone

There was an interesting article (July 18, 2017) – The Political Fiction of Economic Control – that has, seemingly, been the motivation for people sending me heaps of E-mails, some, demanding that I admit that Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is bereft in this specific area of discussion. The article was allegedly written by a Polish journalist with a past that included working at the “Adam Smith Research Centre”, a ‘free market (not!)’ think tank in Warsaw, and a Hungarian economist Lajos Bokros who was formally a Socialist Minister of Finance from 1995 to 1996. But there is a lot of first person in the article (I’m, My, I etc) and only Bokros’ picture and bio is featured. Bokros is best-known for implementing the controversial Bokros Package, which was a “a series of austerity measures” described as “neoliberal shock therapy” based on the erroneous assumption that the Hungarian government would run out of money and have to declare bankruptcy. So it is no surprise that these characters (or Bokros, if he really wrote the article) would support the Eurozone and claim that surrendering a national currency in the case of Hungary and Poland was inevitable if these nations were to progress. The arguments used to make their case, reappear over and over again. They are always incorrect no matter what form they appear.

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There is nothing much that Milton Friedman got right!

“If we want to ensure more people are well-employed, central banks alone will certainly not suffice” is a quote I am happy to republish because I consider it to be 100 per cent accurate. The only problem is that the way I think about that statement and construct its implications is totally at odds with the intent of its author, who claimed it was “an important lesson of Friedman’s speech”, which “remains valid”. The quote appeared in a recent Bloomberg article (July 17, 2017) – What Milton Friedman Got Right, and Wrong, 50 Years Ago – written by journalist Ferdinando Giugliano. It celebrates the Presidential Speech that Friedman gave to the American Economic Association on December 29, 1967 at their annual conference in Washington D.C. In terms of the contest of paradigms, the speech is considered to be the starting point proper of the Monetarist era, even though it took at least another 5 or 6 years (with the onset of the OPEC oil crises) for the gospel espoused by Friedman to really gain ground. The problem is that Friedman was selling snake oil that became the popular litany of the faithful because it suited those who wanted to degrade the role of government in maintaining full employment. It was in step with the push by capital to derail the Post War social democratic consensus that had seen real wages growing in proportion with productivity, reduced income inequality, jobs for all who wanted to work and a strong sense of collective solidarity emerge in most advanced nations. This consensus was the anathema of the elites who saw it as squeezing their share of national income and giving too much power to workers to negotiate better terms and conditions in their work places. Friedman provided the smokescreen for hacking into that consensus and so began the neo-liberal era. We are still enduring its destructive consequences.

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The Weekend Quiz – July 22-23, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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British employers exhibit on-going greed but lie about it

One of the abiding and recurring trends, accentuated in the neo-liberal era, is the apparent ‘concern’ for the low-paid by the captains of industry. They continually warn against allowing pay increases for this cohort because they are – so the story goes – deeply concerned about the damage it will do to the employment prospects. What they really mean is that they know pay rises at the bottom end of the pay structure don’t alter employment levels significantly but have some impact on profitability. That is, they reduce profits a little. And that is the concern they are really expressing. The British Chambers of Commerce have called for a freeze on real wages for the lowest paid workers in Britain despite profitability soaring and the share of business profits in national income rising. The expression ‘where do these characters get off’ comes to mind. Although it is hardly surprising. British entrepreneurs tend to be lazy and take the easy way out when they can to further their own ends.

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The Weekend Quiz – July 15-16, 2017 – answers and discussion

Here are the answers with discussion for this Weekend’s Quiz. The information provided should help you work out why you missed a question or three! If you haven’t already done the Quiz from yesterday then have a go at it before you read the answers. I hope this helps you develop an understanding of modern monetary theory (MMT) and its application to macroeconomic thinking. Comments as usual welcome, especially if I have made an error.

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The conservative opposition to full employment legislation in the US

In 1946, with the Second World War at an end, the world governments turned to the question of how to maintain the full employment that the prosecution of the War had brought in the peace. It was clear that governments could choose whatever unemployment level they wanted through the manipulation of fiscal and industry policies and so the only question was the political will to maintain the full employment state. In the US, the political debate led to the Employment Act 1946, which demonstrated that the parameters of the conflict between conservative and the more liberal forces over what constituted full employment and what responsibility the currency-issuing government had for maintaining high levels of employment. We can see through successive attempts in the US to legislate for full employment how the economic profession has influenced the political process and how we have reached the point today where governments pay lip service to fulfulling their responsibilities as the fiscal agency to maintain sufficient jobs for those who desire to work.

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Disturbing pay trends in Britain

Earlier this month (July 3, 2017) the British Office of National Statistics (ONS) released a research report – Wage growth in Pay Review Body Occupations – which basically summarises what has gone wrong with the world under neo-liberalism. While the Report is about the UK, which has particular characteristics, the trends identified are almost universal and reflect the dominance of the ‘free-(not!)-market’ austerity mentality that has crippled progress around the world. It also helps us understand why the British economy is stalling again and why the latest data on household spending is so disturbing. These trends have nothing to do with Brexit. They are all down to misguided government policy (austerity) and erroneous strategies that seek to generate fiscal surpluses when the non-government sector needs to also run surpluses (and the two aspirations are not simultaneously achievable). British workers are paying for this incompetence. The economists who gratuitously hand out the spurious advice, unfortunately do not lose their jobs.

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