The Attacks on the Banks

I have written about the banks and how important they are to the economy. I have written about the efforts of the U.S. government to control and destroy them. I am reminded of the progression of events in Atlas Shrugged in which the government consistently (unconsciously, i.e., not as a result of cognitive purpose) attacked business sectors as they became vital for the country’s survival. I would not give our government as much credit as Ayn Rand did in the novel. But it is the case that banking and finance is the one industry that every sector relies upon to make business and trade function. Banking is a necessity.

Two recent articles have underscored the rocky road that our economy faces. Earlier this month, Reuters published “Column: The crackdown on bank misbehavior masks a troubling reality” which summed up the actions against our major banks over the last few years:

… In the annual letter he writes to shareholders, Robert Wilmers, the chairman and CEO of M&T Bank, has started keeping track of the fines, sanctions and legal awards levied against the "Big Six" bank holding companies. In 2011, those penalties were $13.9 billion. In 2012, they more than doubled to $29.3 billion. Wilmers writes that the past two years represent the majority of the cumulative $52 billion in charges, from 236 separate actions in eight countries, over the past 11 years. Wilmers also cites a study done by M&T, according to which the top six banks have been cited 1,150 times by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times in articles about their improper activities. Perhaps not surprisingly, the biggest bank, JPMorgan, accounts for a sizable chunk of all this. According to a report by Josh Rosner, a managing director at independent research consultancy Graham Fisher & Co, JPMorgan has paid $8.5 billion in fines between 2009 and 2012, or about 12 percent of its net income over that period.

Then today the U.S. Justice Department announced a forthcoming new set of suits, “Justice Department planning new action against financial firms.” We have national government, states, even cities, and aggrieved individuals attacking and attacking the banking industry. There is more than one reason that this is happening, including plain ignorance. But most important is that private banks are major tools of capitalism. They are obvious symbols of the accumulation of wealth and productiveness. They are being attacked not because of their recent errors and failures, but because of what they represent. Their mistakes and leaders who are actually government lackeys are only a justification for the frenzy of destruction and feeding.

I am not personally aware of anyone defending the banks, except for John Allison. Yet, banking is more vital for our economy than the energy industry, because all industries depend upon credit and capital for their operation. If banking becomes critically wounded, the credit for international movements of oil, for example, or even the movement of oil within our own country becomes difficult. It is not possible on a cash or barter basis. Of course, that comment is only referring to what most of us see as the oil business. The search for oil, the research on oil recovery methods, and all that makes up an oil company depend upon a flow of credit and capital, which at root comes from banking.

Banking has to be defended.

From what I can see, it may be hard for bankers to defend themselves. The indicators include John Allison’s comment in his book that if he were still a banker he couldn’t write his book. Then there are the regulations and laws that require banks to not to reveal various regulatory rulings. And, as there is in the recent Apple anti-trust case, the requirement that the victim of government regulation declare that he was guilty of impure thoughts (anyone for the inquisition?). A banker who stands up and declares that the regulators are immoral idiots won’t be a banker for long. No, as opposed to the conflict between the energy companies and the climate fanatics, defense of banking will have to at least begin on the outside.

So, one of the short-term issues we have to take on, if we want this economy to hold up long enough for us to have at least some success on culture change, is the freedom of finance and banking.

Other recent articles about the U.S. government’s comprehensive attack on finance and banking:



U.S. Bank Legal Bills Exceed $100 Billion

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-08-28/u-s-bank-legal-bills-exceed-100-billion.html



Banks shiver as UBS swallows $885 million U.S. fine

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSBRE96O1FH20130726



Under siege, JPMorgan to quit physical commodities

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSBRE96P10M20130727



JPMorgan to pay $410 million in power market manipulation probe

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSBRE96T0NA20130730



JP Morgan under investigation in Monte Paschi probe: document

http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSBRE96U0MP20130731



FERC seeks BP response to natgas market manipulation

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSBRE9740JU20130805



Regulators willing to risk repo damage

http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSL2N0GH0JP20130816



JPMorgan hit by U.S. bribery probe into Chinese hiring: report

http://www.reuters.com/article/businessNews/idUSBRE97H00P20130818



Bank of America fails to end U.S. govt's mortgage fraud lawsuit

http://www.reuters.com/article/bondsNews/idUSL2N0GS0ZV20130827

What I think is profoundly unjust about this is that the government wanted the banks to take over the ruins of other banks and mortgage companies. Now they out to destroy the bank that took on the history and risk at the government’s behest. This is immoral.

Unavoidable Consequences of Regulation

Among the many interesting points that John Allison made in his excellent book, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure, is that the regulators consistently favored the banks with risky behavior and failed approaches over the successful ones. The deposit “insurance,” the bailout, and the “cures” all reward the failures and punish the successes. This point is even clearer when Mr. Allison discusses the events after the crisis. BB&T was forced to lower, that’s right, lower its capital reserves by the regulators. It was forced by the regulators to change its decision making structure to conform to that in the failed banks and give up a process that had been a significant strength in the bank. The regulators were not interested in success. They were (are) interested in the politically required, currently popular priorities of the non-elected, politically appointed heads of their agency. The regulators were attuned to what the leaders in Congress wanted, not what the market demanded or what was good for the success of the bank or the service of the bank’s customers. This process of political fads is called having a social conscious.

But this is the way it has to be. For a regulator on site to see that a bank is functioning well and is controlling risk he would have to be able to think clearly, independently, and have a good knowledge of banking. None of those characteristics make good regulators. At the very least, the regulator is a bureaucrat who applies regulations. He knows those in detail and by name. His frame of reference is his superior and the head of the agency, not profits or efficiency of the business he regulates. He can’t care about what happens to the business and continue to be a regulator. He doesn’t consider cause and effect except in regard to his agency. He does not know if the regulations will work or not, or care. He doesn’t care about the success of the bank he regulates, only that it not fail worse than the other banks. He doesn’t want to stick out.

All of this is clear from Mr. Allison’s book. It is clear to me from my experiences in the securities business. Talk to your friends in regulated industries. Talk to anyone who has tried to start a new business, or put up a commercial structure.

The Fate of U.S. Banks Is Our Fate

One wonders what politicians and current government-oriented economists think banks are. Ask them to define the concept, banks, and what could come out? Ask them what function they perform in the economy, the private economy, and what would they say? Then, there could be a difference between what they said and what they thought to themselves.

I expect that politicians and the Fed sees them as big piles of money, you know, something like bank robbers view them. Piles of money to loot or to use as influence for their political gain. They don’t view banks as having a particular identity that is necessary for the economy because they believe that they can force the banks into any shape they want and nothing particularly important will happen. Banks are toys, to be played with. Or, banks are whipping boys and every stroke makes the politician look good to the electorate, you know, the mob. The mob hates banks, and has for centuries.

It is my understanding that for a while, primarily in the 19C, some bankers in the U.S. were respected by many people. The name that comes to mind is J.P. Morgan, and his family. Today there is only an echo of that respect left. A PBS program I saw recently ascribed to Morgan a through going desire for power (undefined). That is bad for a banker apparently (but good for Obama).

Before the residential real estate mortgage crisis, banks were very heavily regulated and influenced. Now, the level of government control has gone up dramatically in the Western World. The worst step is Dodds-Frank. Even there I think that few of us, including myself, have but a superficial understanding of how destructive that law will be. It is probably the equivalent of what ObamaCare is for medicine.

But banks are vital for our economy, for an advanced, industrial, integrated economy. Finance, credit, routing of capital, are vital functions in our economy and banks are the number one tool used in those markets. There are a few others, e.g., venture capital funds, hedge funds perhaps, but they are small potatoes compared to the size and range of activities that are banks. To cripple our banks is to cripple our economy.

For the purpose of saving our economy and avoiding disaster, healthy banking is far more important than the size of government spending.

Again, as we have learned from Ayn Rand, and as I have said before on this blog, our first priority for our survival as individuals is freedom, which is the removal of controls and regulations.

Overspending, i.e., the creation of government debt, can kill us, yes. But the only way we win out and survive as men is through freedom. Learn about what is happening. Attack regulation.

Misallocation Leads to Training for the Wrong Jobs

I will be pointing at various excellent observation made by John Allison in his recent book, The Financial Crisis and the Free Market Cure. There are many. Several provide expanded insights into the effects of government intrusion into the economy. A favorite of mine is that one of the elements of the misallocation of investment in a welfare state is the training of people for the wrong jobs. The example in the crisis discussed in Allison’s book is the people trained in house construction. Way too many houses were constructed, meaning we had way too many people employed in that sector. They should have been employed and trained in some other occupation. Instead, we have lots of carpenters, bricklayer, etc., who then found themselves unemployed. When they looked for work, they tried to find a job doing what they were trained to do, but few if any employers needed those skills. To find a new job they need new skills, new training, somehow. Possibly many of these people are the ones who have given up in finding work and are no longer counted as part of the labor force.

The worker who choose to become a construction worker because of the plentiful work (at the time) choose to do so because government policy and manipulation of the economy gave him false information. You can’t expect someone in this country to see through all of the mess and realize that being in construction was a bad idea. Further, seeing that it was a bad idea and looking at things in the correct light does not provide the information necessary to decide what a good course of action would be. (This would be the context of someone who has not yet decided on a personal goal and career. Even then, the amount of earnings one’s goal could achieve is a rational consideration, and the welfare state economy does not provide good information.)

As Ayn Rand said, the government is the cause of unemployment, and one of the ways the result occurs is by the misallocation of investment.

Basic Economics: Savings Accounts

Looking at the modern relationships between interest rates, taxes, and price inflation, I have wondered why anyone would put money into savings accounts or buy bonds, especially U.S. government bonds. A savings account, earning 1.6% (The top rate offered by my credit union recently.), after taxes of say 20% and price inflation of 2% gives you a guaranteed annual loss of 0.72%! The situation for bonds isn’t that much better, if at all. For someone with a higher income, with higher tax rates, the loss is substantially greater .

On the other hand, I know that savings accounts have historically been the primary savings vehicle in the U.S. I know from 100 Voices that Ayn Rand held her money from the sales of her novels in savings accounts. What is the difference between then, even as late as the 1970s and the 1990s, which is when I first realized the problem.

In thinking about this issue, one of the first things I saw is that interest rates have been declining as a trend since the spike in 1990. At that time I had a mortgage at 10.75%. The decline in interest rates since then has been the consequence of the Fed’s view that below market interest rates on loans encourages consumption and business activity and that if they don’t have the economic activity that they want, they decide they should lower rates more. Each round of recession and boom and financial crisis over the last twenty plus years has seen the Fed pushing short-term interest rates lower and lower. Today, the short-term rates are about as low as then can go. The rate the Fed controls directly, the rate it charges banks to borrow overnight funds for their Fed “reserves” (deposits) is zero to 0.25%. (Some recent auctions of German government short-term bonds have seen negative interest rates.) And, for the third time since 2009, they are trying to lower medium and long-term rates with “quantitative easing.”

So, first, the problem I am seeing is a very recent event. What are some of the consequences?

First there is the complete disassociation of savings and capital. The creation and use of capital is a vitally important activity in an economy. The creation and use of capital causes prosperity, not to mention the survival of our population. A population as large as ours cannot survive (or occur) without industrialization. Just to maintain industrialization requires capital. Economies either grow or contract. There is no equilibrium.

Over the last twenty years the number of households that have ownership in corporations, i.e., own stocks, has gone up significantly. One major reason is that people recognize that they have to have a more rapid growth in their retirement savings than can be provided by bank savings accounts. The need is two fold. With taxes and other restraints on creating wealth, they are not able to save enough. And then, price inflation has a double impact in that not only will it make the process of saving enough difficult, but it will also make the amount the retiree needs to live increase significantly and unpredictably. Even a 2% price inflation rate is a danger. That means that in just twenty years, a retiree would need 25% more cash for the same standard of living. Since many retirees live longer than that in retirement, and the percentage of people with such long lives is growing, the impact of even small amounts of price inflation is significant and ignored by the government planners. Bernanke has recently remarked that the effect of the Fed’s goal of 2% price inflation on retirees is unimportant in policy decisions.

You might think that a higher percentage of stockownerships is good for the economy. I’m not so sure. I was, but my view is changing. There is a difference between creating capital and owning existing capital. Saving and putting your money directly into a new or growing business is creating capital. Buying a stock from another owner is not.

Consider what should happen when you put your money into a bank savings account. (I am going to ignore the consumer loans and the loans to business for normal business activities.) Businesses come to banks for the purpose of borrowing money to start a new business or grow their existing company. This is the direct application of capital, i.e., new productive activity. Here we also see the division of labor at work. The person who saved the capital is engaged in his own profession or job and by saving, he is putting money into the hands of the banker whose profession is apprising risk and opportunity in expanding production. Then there are the businessmen who compete for funds by presenting their plans and expectations of profit.

The normal person does not have the expertise to appraise business opportunities. (Although in a rational culture he would have a better understand of the reality of business activity than people do today.) This is true in the case where people already know something about the industry. Some financial writers have advised investors to place their money in industries in which they are familiar. It isn’t a bad idea, but it does not address the additional need to be able to appraise the financial, managerial, and competitive strength of a company. Correctly understanding the context for investing is difficult enough for the professional, especially in today’s complex economy. For those who do not have the relevant education, experience or time, the prospects are very poor. No wonder everyone is so hopped up on the gambling metaphor for investing.

The need for non-professional investors to put their savings into asset markets is part of the make-up of the two recent booms: tech stocks and residential real estate. Without the amateur investor, both booms would have been less dramatic. Note that many of these investors lost lots of money, right along side the so-called professionals. This is over and above the normal losses that the non-professional investor tends to lose in the normal course of events. Some professionals use the activity of the individual investor as a contra indicator. If individual investors are buying, the reasoning goes, it is time to sell. Every study that I have seen clearly concludes that the non-professional consistently looses money investing in asset markets.

Then, over the last twelve years, as I have indicated in a previous post, the equity markets have failed to bring positive returns. Comparing equal dollars of purchasing power, today’s Dow (without including dividends or taxes) is 20% to 25% below the level at the end of the tech stock boom.

In fact, the only asset class that has shown consistent positive returns in the last decade is long-term bonds. But that brings us back to the beginning point, the Fed’s push to lower interest rates, because the reason long-term bonds have shown a gain is that interest rates keep falling. When interest rates begin to go up, watch out. Look at the returns of the bondholders of Greece, Spain, and Italy. When the interest rates on these dead bonds moved from less than 3% to near 6% or more, bond holders lost about 50% of their capital on the secondary market. To me, even 6% or 7% doesn’t seem very high when I wonder if the bonds will be repaid, or repaid with money worth anything.

There are surely lots of other consequences of the Fed’s disastrous decisions. Many are clearly visible, including the continued recession we are suffering through. (Officially the recession ended, but the psychology is still that of a recession, the unemployment level is that of a recession, and the government is doing all it can to keep us there, just like it did in the 1930s.) But the consequences that I have discussed are the ones I have recently added to my list.

But then there is the important question: Is the use of savings accounts by people who aren’t financial professionals a good thing in a laissez-faire economy and how?

The first thing to realize is that in a laissez-faire economy prices and wages tend to fall over time, which is the consequence of having a money immune from government manipulation. Prices fall faster than wages so that there is a continuous raise in the standard of living. That means that the dollar you place in a savings account will have a greater purchasing power over time even without consideration of interest paid.

The second important issue is the level of what is called the ordinary interest rate. That is the amount of return required for a person to delay consumption. This interest rate does not include consideration of risk, etc. I have seen suggestions that the rate of ordinary interest tends to be around 1%. That is, the normal person would be willing to put off spending $100 if in one year they had $101, assuming a laissez-faire economy. Other issues, such as the supply of physical capital (one market where supply does play a role in price) and risk factors, increase the interest rate within different market contexts.

So, if a savings account offered 2% interest, it was a great deal. The same is true for bonds issued by businesses. Saving for retirement would require much less of a struggle, later medical bills would be less of a problem, and our standard of living would continue to raise and we could have the flying car (see, my avatar means something – what we have lost due to government interference!).

Then, money placed into savings accounts was then loaned by banks to businesses who were credit worthy and had the best available plans for additional profits. Savings, that is capital, was accumulated and placed in the service of wealth creation, capitalism. That is basic banking.

I think much of the concern and fuss over fractional banking is based upon the view that banks are warehouses rather than institutions involved in the accumulation of capital. In the modern world, even ignoring the stupid, forced level of interest rates required by welfare state banking theory, savings have been diverted from banks and their major source of funds are demand deposits.

While unused demand deposits, and the goods represented by that money, are a kind of unintentional savings, real savings involves conscious decision and results in the funds being placed accordingly. When real savings is placed into profitable enterprise, and market rates of interest paid, investing and profit making activity would actually be a less risky activity.

With the manipulation of the money supply, the extensive regulation of the financial community, and the control of interest rates, none of the prices for savings or the factors of production reflect any part of the reality of business activity, market opportunities, or costs (not to mention political pull). Who knows what can or will happen when no facts are available for reason to evaluate.

So my conclusion is that in a laissez-faire economy, placing your money in savings accounts and buying bonds (of businesses) is a sane and personally beneficial decision.

In our economy, the government has pretty much taken way sane and beneficial opportunities. If you accept the idea that one should know what one is doing, then probably 90% of the investing public is acting irrationally. They do not understand the world as it currently functions, including the existing markets and the impact of government regulations and manipulations. Yes, I think that is true of many of my readers. Sorry.

The Immediate Important Lesson From Europe

We can learn many lessons from what is happening in Europe and what will be happening over the next decade or two. We will see in very explicit detail that democracy is at root a destructive system as it attempts to consume very productive asset it can get its hands on. We shall see that borrowing to spend and consume is inherently a dead-end. We shall see again that government controls do not stop destructive behavior and that few know what good behavior is then. Etc.

But we are now witnessing something that I didn’t expect. We are seeing how not to achieve a turn around in an economy. “Austerity” is a failed program.

Okay, first let’s consider what “austerity” is. It is not actually austerity. The term was first picked up from the context of an over-indebted person. If he wanted to get out of his situation, without going back on his word to pay those people who lent him money, he had to reduce his spending and pay off his debts. Then he would be financially healthy and could begin building wealth.

So, the idea went, governments could reduce their spending, too. Except they failed to remember two different aspects of the individual’s context: first, that the individual had to continue to work, i.e., produce. Production is still the key. Second, they failed to remember that the individual had to spend less than his income. Governments regard “austerity” as merely spending less than they were or perhaps spending less than they were planning, although still increasing their spending. I haven’t seen any of the European governments talking about a budget surplus and paying off their debt.

But, the most important lesson to be learned is the first: Production is the key. What I mean is that just spending less in those countries has no positive effect on the economy, only less of a negative effect. What has a positive effect is the creation of goods and services, i.e., production. Those countries aren’t producing more. Actually, since they have grown the government so much, less spending translates immediately into less purchases and a constriction of business. Business has been forced to depend upon government spending. When that spending disappears, businesses do less business, are less profitable and tend to fail. That is what we are seeing across Europe, especially in the countries with the worst situations.

Those economies haven’t gotten to where they are because of the government spending by itself. The major cause of the poor performance of those economies is government controls. Controls limit what businessmen can do and their ability to produce. Government controls are the lid on man’s productive capacity.

As long as the government controls the economy, and the European Union has a staggering level of controls, those economies are going to suffer. In fact, what we see today is the simultaneous reduction of government spending with the increase in numbers and degree of control. We see tighter and tighter restrictions being placed on business and finance, further weakening their ability to produce while the governments are trying to at least slow the rate of their indebtedness. It won’t work.

This is a lesson for us all. We need to realize that as bad as the debt situation is, and as bad as it can get, and that by itself debt can destroy our economy, that it is not the primary issue and should not be our primary target. At least it shouldn’t be.

We must also recognize that if we only talk about debt and the need to reduce spending as our immediate objective we will not succeed in moving any society towards our viewpoint. They see what “austerity” achieves. No one should want any part of that, including us.

No, our focus should be on production. Our campaign should be to unleash the productive abilities of the United States, to reverse governmental economic controls. to free our businessmen. Freedom. That should be our program.

I do not want for a minute for you to think that I am the originator of this insight. As in most all of my understanding of the world, I learned this from Ayn Rand. She did not write about this issue, but she was asked about it more than once in public forums. It is to our benefit that we can read today what she said in response to those questions in Ayn Rand Answers, pages 46-50. Also look at her answer regarding unemployment benefits on page 124. She isn’t in favor of government spending or any activity that isn’t directly protecting individual rights. She wants to stop inappropriate government spending. But she recognizes that what must be done first is to free the economy. Without that first step, and giving it the time to begin producing (probably shorter than we might think), we will see our economy contract just as the European economies are.

My position in this article isn’t new, but I hadn’t realized until recently that the European “austerity” program was exactly that being proposed by my critics. These are the people who argue that the US government spending had to be stopped as soon as possible. The immediate target of these proponents of “austerity” was Social Security and unemployment benefits. I responded that what would happen is just a lot of misery and the destruction of legitimate business, which is just what is happening in Europe, especially Greece and Spain. If “austerity” were begun in the US today, the results might not be as bad. But no good would be achieved as long as government controls were kept in place.

The only direct, economic destructive element of government spending is that it soaks up savings, which is needed for business investment. But the economy can find capital when it has potential profits in sight. We would learn that finding capital would not be an issue. Today, the drag on the US economy isn’t a lack of capital. Banks will tell you that they have plenty to lend. Businesses have plenty of money to invest if they chose. (I am not really conflating fiat money with capital.) Companies could find capital today if they were confident in the future. With all of the proposed additional controls and the fear of BO’s plans for our future, they are wise to avoid the crazy risk inherent in our political situation. And thus the economy stalls. It isn’t the deficit they are afraid of, but government force.

It might be argued that the correct approach to cutting spending would include some advanced warning. Perhaps people should be given a year or two to get their lives in order in preparation for changes in government spending. Yet, that still doesn’t address the underlying problem. If there isn’t sufficient economic activity, sufficient investment, sufficient production, sufficient productive jobs, advanced warning would provide no benefit. There are no economic alternatives to prepare with. Advanced warning only is beneficial if the person affected has alternatives to what he is currently relying upon.

At this point the response that I receive is that I am evading the moral issue of the theft of the property of those who are paying the taxes (either direct or indirect from the borrowing and inflation). It is wrong, I am told, for the theft to continue. It should be stopped immediately.

Aside from the fact that Ayn Rand did not advance this point when she had the chance, and aside from the fact that I am not disagreeing with either the immorality of the taxes or the spending, and aside from the fact that I vehemently argue that the spending and borrowing has to stop, and aside from the fact that I recognize the moral hazard from the dependency upon government spending, I reject the argument that the morality requires us to act without considering the immediate consequences and how very bad ones can be avoided.

I would argue that Objectivist morality is fundamentally a morality of consequences, that is, of causes and effects, of ends and means. If implementing a moral decision means the destruction of those who are the intended beneficiaries, the innocent and the productive in this case, then there is something wrong with the reasoning. And destruction of the productive and innocent is definitely a result of “austerity.” It isn’t just the person receiving the government handout who is suffering but the entire economy, the productive and innocent. Real, honest businesses are going under. People who made rational decisions within the context of their country are loosing all they possess. It is these people who a morality of self-interest and the social-economic system of capitalism is suppose to protect. It is they who should flourish. “Austerity” is destroying their lives as thoroughly as socialism itself. Therefore, “austerity” is the wrong approach.

While government spending upon anything but the protection of individual rights is automatically a violation of rights and a move toward the destruction of those rights, the spending itself isn’t a major catastrophe, in the sense of the immediate, economic consequences. Just as with a household, it isn’t the spending per se, it is the spending in relation to the income, which means the economy’s production. If the spending is higher than the production allows (not even considering the savings necessary to increase production), then there will be problems. That is true for either a household or a business or a government. It is worse when the overspending is for unproductive consumption, which is always true of governmental spending. “Infrastructure” is consumption. Something constructed by the government might sit there for a while, like a bridge, but it is not paying its own way and replacing itself, as a business investment would, is consumption.

Of course, governmental spending is often accompanied by restrictions on the population because the government wants to keep its monopoly, i.e., only the government can build roads, etc. If there was competition, the incompetence of the government would be clearly demonstrated. Look at the U.S. Post Office.

No, government spending isn’t the cause of a country’s economy failing to grow.

On the other hand, the best any of the commentators that I have read have made only the slight suggestions that regulation has any effect on production and prosperity. It is recognized that regulation has a cost in time and money, but not on an economy’s ability to produce and grow. This is a complete blind spot. I attribute this lack of knowledge to the general rationalist trend found in economics and business schools. Looking at how things actually work is not an acceptable practice. At least at one point in time efficiency studies were all the rage. If there are still such studies they most likely don’t question government mandated business practices. They just treat regulations as acts of nature.

However, the point is that government regulation is treated as just a part of life and is not questioned and its consequences are not considered. This last point is true in a wider scale than you probably realize. Few look to see if the supposed good consequence of government regulation actually happened. No follow up studies are done to evaluate the success of the regulation. Those consequences are assumed and bragged about but never proved or evaluated. Recently, I received an email from Ending Big Government, the website set up by Yaron Brook and Don Watkins in connection with their new book, Free Market Revolution: How Ayn Rand’s Ideas Can End Big Government. This email was entitled “Story about Stories” in which people who were impacted by government regulations explained what was happening (See here). This is a great idea. The consequences of regulations have to be concretized for people. They have to see in detail that regulation is destructive in order to understand that it has to be stopped. For example, people don’t know how extensive, intrusive, expensive, and anti-productive the FDA regulation is. These details need to be made public. The media won’t do it. The Republicans won’t do it. Who will?

So, let me suggest that you continue to watch Europe attempt to practice “austerity” and how they go into recessions. I think that Spain is already in a depression, or will be soon. Greece certainly is. Think about the consequences as the government just spending less. Think about why their economies can’t seem to grow. What is stopping them?

Next week I hope to finish up a post that will be more specific about Europe and the backlash against “austerity.” I think that we will see another lesson there as well.

A Chance to Have Input for a Book

Recently there have been several articles dealing with claims made by some Republicans that regulation hampers job growth. Mostly, these articles (for example) attempt to reject that claim. To me, and I suspect many of my readers, it seems almost obvious that when you restrict someone’s business activities, their ability to create jobs would be hampered. On the other hand, I don’t know of any book or study that documents that connection. Doing so would be a good thing. Hence, let me draw your attention to a planned book I just read about.

I receive a weekly email newsletter from John Mauldin about the economy and its impact on investing. If you keep in mind that his frame of reference is basically mainstream, with a dash of the reality of trying to deal with real businesses and their futures, then his stuff isn’t bad. I have used some of the information that he has found in this blog. He published a book last year called “Endgame” in which he discusses the world build up of debt and its impact. I don’t really recommend it, as his analysis is severely limited and warped by his basic poor understanding of economics and his conventional morality. Its redeeming feature is that he is emphatic in that the debt will be a disaster.

Now he is going to write a book about job creation. It could be decent because he seems to understand that only business can create “meaningful lasting” jobs. This is the wrong focus, of course, (it should be on how business can freely create wealth) but jobs are a consequence and if businesses can create jobs, they will be creating wealth. (I know that this wrong focus could backfire. However, it is also true that people need to know how jobs are created. If that is explained properly, i.e., as a result of creating wealth, then it will point people in the right direction.) Anyway, he is calling for examples and ideas, so why shouldn’t he get some good ones. If you want, send him an email.

He says:
“You can't read any serious economic analysis of late that does not talk about jobs, whether in Europe or the US or Asia. And not a lot of it is pretty. Politicians offer "plans" for jobs, most of which go to great lengths to illustrate the sympathy they have for people out of work, but without offering any real ideas on how to create meaningful, lasting jobs. Some are actually destructive of jobs, far from creating any (these are of the "I'm from the government and I'm here to help" variety).

I have been having a rather lively email conversation with several serious thought-leaders about what we should do to get us out of the current job malaise. The ideas we are discussing are worth a wider audience, so Bill Dunkelberg, who is the Chief Economist for the National Federation of Independent Businesses and I have decided to write what we hope will be a short book on employment (I know, I have never done a short book yet). How are jobs created? What policies should governments adopt to help create jobs? How do we get back to full employment in the US in a Muddle Through economy that needs at least 125,000 jobs a month just to keep up with population growth? (Today we learned that in October new employment was just 80,000.)

Stupid Government Tricks

The book will be US-centric in its focus, but the policies we will be talking about can be adapted to almost any country. I should note that Dunk and I will be getting a little help from our friends, and we want your help in some very specific ways.

First, I know my readers are among the smartest on the net. If you have an idea about how to increase employment, send it to us. Put "jobs" in the subject line.

Also, most of America is familiar with David Letterman's occasional skit called "Stupid Animal Tricks." We want to do a section on government policies that hurt job creation. At all levels, from local to national. Send us your anecdotes and notes on odd rules and laws that destroy jobs and opportunity, rather than create them. Almost everyone has a story about how government is hurting their business. Tell us yours.

And at the same time, what do you see that is working? Why do some states seem to attract businesses and others lose them? Again, send your comments with the subject line "jobs." And, you'll get a footnote if we use your suggestion. (Hey, I love being footnoted!)”

John@FrontlineThoughts.com

The Right Way to Solve the Entitlement Problem

It is important that I first am clear that I am against the use of government, i.e., the use of force, against the inhabitants of our nation, to provide for benefits of the retired, the sick, the unemployed, business, anyone. Such action by the government is wrong morally, wrong politically, and very bad economics. It should be stopped. It must be stopped. Okay? Is there any question about my position on this (for the justification see Ayn Rand’s “The Nature of Government”).

What I am concerned with in this post is that I have seen people, good, solid, rational people, suggesting solutions to the entitlement problem that I think are not good choices. It is possible that they are not completely setting out their solutions, but what has been offered are insufficient to change the situation.

I want to begin my comments with a question: What do we want to achieve? My answer to this question is that, ultimately, what we want to achieve is a productive, rational society in which we are free to pursue our own goals based upon our own judgment. We want to achieve freedom, capitalism.

Further, we want to achieve this result with the least chaos and human suffering as is possible. We see that if capitalism isn’t achieved we and our fellow man will be in for a lot of suffering, and possibly worse. We may completely lose our freedoms. We may completely lose our stand of living. In an interview on The Dailer Ticker, Yaron Brook emphasized these very points. Stop gap measures will not work. There needs to be a change in philosophy.

Our goal is capitalism, not merely lower government debt or fewer people depending upon the government. Anything but actual capitalism would not be safe or permanent, but would merely delay reinstatement of the government activities that we had managed to reduce. In an interview on The Dailer Ticker, Yaron Brook emphasized these very points. Stop gap measures will not work. There needs to be a change in philosophy.

More broadly, capitalism is the only system in which anyone who puts forth effort can and will find a way to maintain themselves, and to achieve the success they are capable of. Those who do not or cannot put forth the effort will be dependent upon the voluntary support of someone who does. There is prosperity. Capitalism does not support suffering. Contrary to criticism, capitalism does not support poverty, hunger, hopelessness.

The problems with entitlements, in addition to the moral issue, is that in the present situation, entitlements and other government wealth transfers, such as unemployment insurance, are necessarily resulting in massive government borrowing and are moving us inextricably to bankruptcy (in one form or another) and depression. Depression for an advanced country like the United States will be an unprecedented event.

It is obvious to anyone who is honest enough to look that the current situation will result in disaster. The entitlements and wealth transfer payments have to be eliminated. The rapid, dramatic growth in the government debt has to be stopped and brought down. There is no choice. Not doing so will result, as I indicated above, in disaster.

It is at this point that people are then offering some suggestions as to how the entitlement programs could be stopped. However, solutions that focus on the entitlement programs as the main issue are making an error. Stopping these programs at this point will not achieve anything but chaos and massive poverty and illness.

Consider the numbers of people who are dependent upon government programs today. The number of unemployed, (very) underemployed, and that have given up looking for work is close to thirty million people. If you add in their dependents you probably have forty to fifty million. The number of people receiving Social Security is currently sixty million (over forty million aged 65 and older). The number on Medicare is nearly forty million. Those receiving food stamps is nearly forty million. Some of these numbers overlap. Some are gaming the system and fraudulent. But the totals are overwhelming.

Another group of people dependent upon government transfer payments are government employees, federal, state, and local. A fairly recent figure for this group (excluding the military) is nearly twenty million. If you also add in the employees in the private sector who’s responsibility is keeping up with government regulations, you have another large group who are not engaged in productive work and whose indirect reliance on government money has to come to an end. (The government figure does include some who are rationally required, but it is a small percentage, I think.)

In a country of over 313 million people, over thirty to thirty-five percent are wholly dependent upon government funds and are immorally living off the productiveness of others and are an enormous drag on the economy.

The bad news is that if they all, or just the most obvious. were turned loose from their dependency and the government money were turned off, their desperate situation would become a major, immediate cause of riots and distress.

You might say a couple things, for example, that the money freed up will enable the economy to do better, or that the change will happen more slowly. The current problems in the economy is not a question of money, employment, or actually resources but government controls and interference. The constant stream of new government orders, crises, and attacks is finally, after nearly a century, dragging down the possibility of growth in the economy. Merely stopping some government transfers would not be sufficient. It would only possibly delay the result. Nor would the speed of change matter. The economy still couldn’t handle it. That is to say that these people would not be put to productive use. New, productive jobs would not appear in the numbers needed. There would be constant pressure to reinstate the programs or for something worse.

For those people who are retired, the suggested methods of replacing Social Security and Medicare, that is, putting money into their hands based upon some calculation relating to what was taxed in the past would not be sufficient to support them over the remainder of their lives, even if there were no additional general consumer price increases. Nor would they know what to do with the money, since few ever acquired the necessary knowledge.

But besides those points, very important consideration is that the economy would not be productive enough to support the massive number of people who are expected to retire.

All of the problems are interconnected. It is one economy. No freedom, no productive economy, no support in any fashion for the large number of retired people that are in the baby-boomer generation. The issue of the debt hides the fundamental problem of the welfare state. It saps the productive ability of the economy to the point that it can no longer support itself. The build up of government debt is the easiest way for today’s welfare state to finance its programs, but it could use other ways such as massive taxation and high levels of inflation, which would also lead to failure. The problems are the result of the welfare state: its morality and its economics combined.

Let me say this again. The point needs to be emphasized. Our economic structure today and into the foreseeable future will not support the expected number of people retiring over the next decade or two. That is so with or without the entitlement program. Something more has to be done than just ending the programs.

But, more important, the focus is wrong, confused, and misleads us into forgetting our goal. The entitlement programs are a symptom of the wrong philosophy supporting today’s trends in government and the economy. Do not focus on the symptoms. Focus on the philosophy and our goal.

Focusing only on the entitlement programs is also terrifying to those immediately affected and their families. It would terrify anyone who does not want to see wide spread poverty and illness. I am certain that we don’t wish to see that either.

Taking the steps to achieve the establishment of capitalism will also allow us to easily, cheaply, and happily eliminate the negatives (which we should expect would be the result of the achievement of productive values).

The initial steps of establishing capitalism would be the freeing of the productive, creative businessmen. When asked what should be done first to change the economy, Ayn Rand answered, “Start decontrolling the economy as fast as rational economic considerations permit. I speak of “rational economic considerations” because today, every part of the population is dependent on government controls. Most professions have to function under controls, and their activities are calculated on that basis. So if anyone were to repeal all controls overnight, by legislative fiat, that would be a disastrous, arbitrary, dictatorial action. What a free country needs to give all the people concerned sufficient notice to readjust and reorganize their economic activities. Therefore, after working out with economists the kind of program necessary to decontrol the country, and what controls should be repealed first, I would then advise passing legislation announcing that certain controls will be abolished within three years, say – the period calculated to allow people the opportunity to readjust their activities. In a free economy, no change happens out of the blue and overnight. Every economic change, every development, is gradual. Therefore, in a free society, there are no immediate and disastrous changes. But given our present situation, any sudden changes could create disastrous dislocations, and so we should decontrol gradually.” (Ayn Rand Answers, p. 49) She goes on to suggest that the anti-trust laws can be gotten rid of immediately, especially laws that jail businessmen. She points out that the decontrol of the economy will then pretty much eliminate our economic problems. That means, today, that the debt issues and the economic aspects of the entitlement programs will be come easier to solve. Decontrol would also result in the creation of lots of new, productive jobs.

This prospect, the resulting productivity, prosperity, and creation of wealth, will be the foundation, along with the morality of self-interest, for convincing people that ending the entitlements is going to cause, at worst, only a brief period of difficulty and the long-run result will be significantly better than Social Security and Medicare. (I have written about how these programs can be funded for those unable to rejoin the job market.)

Within a few years the older population will be the majority of voters. Many of the arguments for changing the system have to be aimed at them. They have to be shown that they will not be abandoned, that they will do okay. Merely coming up with a nice sounding set of steps will not work. It shouldn’t. Do you expect the average American retired person to accept an idea that requires him to live in abject poverty for the remainder of his life? If you want the support of intelligent people you need to show precisely how it will work. You say that they can’t expect that things will go wonderfully. No. And if you do your job right and make clear that if they don’t allow the change to happen, if they do not clamor for the change to capitalism to happen, they necessarily will live in abject poverty for the rest of their lives, then they will be able to put up with some discomfort.

Let me say this again: People have to learn that the current situation is going to result in misery. It can not survive. Depression is our future. That is their choice: depression or capitalism.

Winning the war to put man on a rational course requires both the moral and the economic argument, with full knowledge of the consequences for everyone of each step. We have to communicate and justify the idea that capitalism will be a real road to prosperity and that there is no other road. The argument is not just the moral. It is about all of reality, with a major focus on the economics. People do not know the economics of capitalism (or the world they live in now) any more than they know the morality. Neither will be a strong enough argument by itself. Combined, they are intellectually overpowering. All it takes is finding people who are willing to look at reality and showing it to them.

Reich: From Regulation to Restructuring

In the second article by Dr. Robert Reich that caught my eye recently, the good doctor is actually criticizing BO and his gang. BO is not being assertive enough and thus the problems that both BO and Reich want to “solve” are not receiving the best solution, according to Reich.


First, Reich addresses the failures in the financial reform bill in Congress. He reiterates the criticisms that I mentioned in my last blog, i.e., that banks are being subsidized to cover their derivative activity (amazingly he includes the AIG transactions, which were actually straight insurance purchases).

But Reich’s primary criticism is that the banking system is not being “restructured”. Reich wants the major banks to be broken up and prohibited from reaching a (unspecified) size. (I wrote about that issue in a previous blog where I pointed out the very drastic consequences for the U.S. and world economy.) His reason is that he does not want them to be “too big to fail”, and thus be bailed out by the federal government if, rather, when things go bump again. Reich is not willing to consider the notion that maybe the government shouldn’t be bailing out banks or anyone. No, he thinks that part is fine. He thinks that the government is “protecting” the economy by bailing out people. Reich wants to break up the banks. I liken it to wanting to play tinker toys with real world businesses.

He does recognize that there may be adverse competitive consequences for U.S. banks, but he brushes those objections aside. This part of his argument is very strange. He says, “…since when is it up to taxpayers to guarantee profitability at America’s largest banks relative to foreign ones?” But, the Dems have never suggested that they wanted to undercut American businesses. Their claims before have always been that their “solutions” for the American economy have been beneficial to all. Reich is propounding a new attitude, a new policy that says that American businesses, and thus its citizens, should be “restructured” in spite of the obvious disadvantage that results.

To further make his case for restructuring, he turns to the healthcare industry. He says, “Similarly, the underlying system of private for-profit health insurance is a key driver of America’s bloated and ineffective health care delivery. We can try to regulate it like mad, but no amount of regulation will cure this fundamental problem.” Similarly, in this case, the problem is the “private for-profit health insurance”. Again, we need restructuring, i.e., a single payer system, socialized medicine.

Regulation for Reich is an attempt to “mend” capitalism. Instead, “The only way to have a lasting effect on industries as large and intransigent as banking and health care is to alter their structure.” And he further lets the cat out of the bag, “That was the approach taken to finance by Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, and by Lyndon Johnson to health care (Medicare) in the 1960s.” The former maintained a depression that lasted over a decade and LBJ can be thanked for the current mess in healthcare in the U.S., which no one, either Democrat or Republican, is willing to admit. So, all of the past attempts to deal with capitalism’s failings have themselves failed.

Reich’s criticism of regulation, especially in the two industries that he is using as his examples in the article, is that lobbyists and the industries can wiggle out of the intended consequences. He says, “A regulatory approach allows for more bargaining, not only in the legislative process but also, over time, in the rule-making process as legislation is put into effect. It’s always possible to placate an industry with a carefully-chosen loophole or vague legislative language that will allow the industry to continue to go on much as before.” That is, the victims can try to make some decisions of their own and try to run their own lives and businesses. He says, “And that’s precisely the problem.” The problem is that there is some semblance of freedom. That is unacceptable.

The problem in the American economy, according to Reich, is structural. What is the structure now, in Reich’s view. It is capitalism. It is for-profit. It is what the bankers are doing, basically by themselves, without Reich’s approval. The solution is for the government to mold the structure of the economy. Mold the activities of the people. Mold the people themselves.

As I said at the beginning of the first of these two posts, Dr. Robert Reich is a Marxist economist.

This article is unusual for two reasons. He explicitly proclaims that the actions of government should not be considered for their benefit for the economy or business but should be taken in the face of adverse consequences. He is admitting that the left’s solutions should be taken regardless of consequences. Instead, he calls for sacrifice (my word) for the benefit of the “taxpayers”. Second, his demands that the economy be restructured signal a new strategy. Regulation is now something that will be regarded as merely a accommodation to capitalism and rogue businessmen. What is needed is structural change, changes that make the government the direct controller in the economy. Regulation tends to be set up in terms of what business can’t do or what it must do to assure safety or fair play or some supposed good. Reich’s articles are pushing the government to become the primary force in determining the make up of businesses and the economy. Next, it will be the five year plan.