Tuesday, June 30, 2020

EconomicPolicyJournal.com Service Notice


Yesterday, I received this notice from my web hosting service:
Dear Robert,

You have 2 days before we fully migrate and upgrade our hosting servers on July 1st 2020.  As a result, your website’s PHP and PERL scripts may be incompatible, causing your site to lose functionality.

If you don’t act now, your website’s outdated PHP and PERL scripts can cause serious functionality issues.

You have 48 hours to update and test your scripts in our sandbox environment. 
I don't believe this will be a problem for EconomicPolicyJournal.com but you never know.

So if the site goes down tomorrow, rest assured I haven't gone anywhere and may have to tweak something.

-RW

COVID-19 Bankruptcies: What Really Are the Ramifications?



At the post, Cirque Du Soleil Files For Bankruptcy, Dominick asks an important question:
RW, any opinion on how harmful (to the economy) these bankruptcies actually are? After all, it is a way to shed debt and reorganize the balance sheet...and come back leaner and meaner than before. Any comment?
There is a lot to consider here.

First, if it is a small mom and pop shop that files for bankruptcy and doesn't have strong relationships with banks and suppliers, it could very well be a direct hit. These type shops do go out of business and COVID-19 lockdowns are the clear direct cause.

In situations of larger operations such as Cirque Du Soleil that have stronger relationships with banks and other financiers, the cases are different. Such operations are very likely to recover and come back "leaner and meaner."

However, in these cases, it does not mean there is no damage to the economy. The creditors of Cirque Du Soleil will certainly be damaged since they are unlikely to receive 100 cents on the dollar of what they are owed. This could mean losses for suppliers, to landlords to banks.

And we shouldn't dismiss the losses to banks from these types of bankruptcies with a wave of the hand and the thought "Oh, it is just the banks. They can absorb it."

To the degree such banks face losses from bankruptcies, it is a shrinkage of the banks' capital and thus a shrinkage of the amount of capital they can put out in the economy to help it grow. It does get a little bit complicated with the current fractional reserve banking system but the point is that the structure of the economy does change with these bankruptcies even if the firms themselves are able to come back with a stronger balance sheet.

But bottom line, there are all kinds of twists and turns and distortions on going with these COVID-19 related bankruptcies beyond the firms coming back lean and mean.

-RW

MORE MONEY PRINTING: Proposals Under Consideration for Another Reckless Stimulus Package

Larry Kudlow
On Monday, top Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow cited the following as options for a phase 4 stimulus:

-- Payroll tax holiday;
-- Capital gains tax cut;
-- Business investment incentives;
-- Deductions for restaurants/biz expenses/"baseball games";
-- State and local aid of some kind

I am all for tax cuts, and the first four options can all be considered tax cuts of one form or another. However, without accompanying cuts in government spending, these cuts will only result in increased taxes of one form or another via various methods.

The greatest tax threat being Federal Reserve money printing to make up the shortfall between revenue and spending. The money printing, of course, brings with it the tax of price inflation.

Further, the final item on the stimulus list of options should be a no go.

State and local governments brought on their fiscal woes by launching unscientific irresponsible lockdowns. Let those who financed these governments take the financial hit for this reckless behavior, not the citizens of the country. Once again, the federal government has no funds for such a bailout and the ultimate source of the money would have to be via taxes of one sort or another.

The nation is in terrible economic shape, the last thing that should be instituted are more taxes including Federal Reserve money printing style taxes.

Of course, the typical shallow-thinking Trump administration is not thinking beyond the "stimulus." The disaster of the Fed money pump could result in the destruction of the dollar on foreign exchange markets and high-grade price inflation domestically.

-RW

Monday, June 29, 2020

Cirque Du Soleil Files For Bankruptcy


The highly questionable lockdowns have taken down another big name.

Cirque du Soleil, the Las Vegas Strip’s preeminent production company for more than two decades, has filed for bankruptcy protection, reports the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The company, which has six productions on the Strip, announced Monday morning that it was seeking debt restructuring protection.

The company said in its filing announcement the refinancing move was “in response to immense disruption and forced show closures as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Cirque du Soleil shut down all 44 of its shows in March, laying off 95 percent of its workforce, including more than 1,300 in Las Vegas.

The bankruptcy filing also allows the company protection from creditors to reduce its debt load, reported being at least $900 million.

-RW

Why Did Larry Summers Just Write a Batshit Crazy Lefty Op-Ed for the Washington Post?

Joe Biden and Larry Summers
It appears that Larry Summers is going out of his way to restore his lefty credentials after setting them on fire when he was president of Harvard University.

The tone-deaf Summers said, in comments at a conference held by the National Bureau of Economic Research on January 14, 2005, while he was the university's president, that the fact there are few women in top positions in science may be because of  "issues of intrinsic aptitude."

He was gone by 2006, one of the first known successful victims of the now burgeoning cancel culture.

Summers, who was a senior U.S. Treasury Department official throughout President Clinton's administration, concluding as  Treasury Secretary, and for a time director of the National Economic Council for President Obama, appears to want in on a potential Biden administration.

He has reportedly been on several internal Biden campaign calls.

But the radicals around Biden are in attack mode. The Nation in April came out with a major hit piece on Summers titled, Larry Summers Is a Dead Albatross Around Biden’s Neck.

Here's a key excerpt:
[S]ome of Biden’s top advisers are anathema to progressives. As [Politico’s Michael] Grunwald notes, “This week, Biden has taken flak from the left for including the corporate-friendly Democratic economist Lawrence Summers on internal calls.”...

There are two main objections to Summers: his personality and his politics. He has a well-documented history of being an overbearing boss, a know-it-all with a habit of publicly humiliating his underlings and colleagues. Christina Romer, who served as chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Obama administration, complained that Summers treated her like “a piece of meat.”...

As appalling as Summers might be on a personal level, his politics are even worse. Joe Biden might be ready to bid adieu to the era of Milton Friedman, the right-wing economist who was one of the major architects of neoliberalism, but Larry Summers most definitely is not
Friedman is far from consistently sound on free-market economics, especially when it comes to monetary policy, but linking Summers to Friedman is like linking Kim Kardashian to Kim Jong-un.

And as if to prove it, Summers has written (with Anna Stansbury) an op-ed which appeared in Sunday's Washington Post.
Among the anti-Friedmanite policy proposals, Summers and Stansbury make in the essay are these  (my highlights):

 A traditional economic argument is that policy should let markets function competitively and then rely on progressive taxation and spending to redistribute income afterward. It is this kind of thinking that lies behind advocacy of negative income taxes or, more recently, for a universal basic income. But progressive institutionalists have long argued for pre-distribution alongside redistribution, strengthening worker power by changing the structure of labor market institutions.We believe both ingredients are required.
---

 When something is a big problem — as is inequality in America today — it is appropriate to tackle it from multiple angles.
---

 There is reason to believe, for example, that allowing bargaining at a broader level than just the individual firm — such as sectoral collective bargaining — would reduce the negative effects of unionization on unemployment.
---

Overall, we believe that increasing worker power must be a central and urgent priority for policymakers concerned with inequality, low pay and poor work conditions. If we do not shift the distribution of power toward workers, any other policy changes are likely to be short-term and insufficient.
Wow, after that, even senile Joe would get that Summers is no Friedmanite. If that doesn't establish you as a lefty nut job central planner I don't know what will.

But what is most concerning is that Summers believes this is the position he has to get good with the Biden team. He has an inside glimpse as to what is going on around Biden and its secretive economic team and it must be packed with extremely radical central planners.

So from an economic policy perspective, the 2020 election may come down to Trump, who doesn't have a clue about economics, or Biden who is even worse--maybe much worse.

-RW

Sunday, June 28, 2020

Dread Risk Fear And Its Role in the Current COVID-19 Fear




In this episode of my podcast, This Week in Economics with Robert Wenzel,  I discuss dread risk fear and its role in the current COVID-19 fear.

The episode is available on most podcast platforms and alternatively here.



Note: If your podcast platform does not carry the series, just add this link to your platform:
https://wenzel.podbean.com/feed.xml

-RW

Corporate America is Throwing Facebook Under the Bus

Mark Zuckerberg
This is simply astounding, a massive number of major corporations are falling in line and will boycott Facebook in July by not advertising at the social media web site giant for at least the month.

The alleged Facebook "crime" is that it has not censored enough "hate" posts. In other words, Facebook has allowed too much freedom of speech as far as the Mao crowd is concerned.

Corporate America is either in line with the thinking of the Mao crowd or fears them.

More than 150 companies have decided to stop advertising spending on Facebook for the month, including Verizon,  Coca-Cola, Unilever, Honda, Lending Club, Ben and Jerry's and The North Face.

The full list of boycotters is updated here.

The advance of the radical leftists continues to accelerate.

It is very difficult to judge how much staying-power this anti-capitalist movement has but it has to be taken extremely seriously. They for sure are not playing.

For example, they are now threatening Target because the retailer calls the police on blacks who shoplift.
They are going to advance this destruction across the board as far as they can. There are very skilled puppetmasters behind the curtains.

-RW

Company Tied to Top Trump Economic Adviser Got $19.9 Million "Small Business" Forgivable COVID-19 Bailout Loan

President Trump awards Arthur Laffer the Presidential Medal of Freedom
A firm where longtime economic adviser to President Trump, Arthur Laffer, sat on the board received a $19.9 million forgivable loan under the COVID-19 bailout Paycheck Protection Program.

Laffer resigned from the board of GEE Group Inc., a professional staffing services firm, in March, which puts his resignation roughly in line with when GEE received the payment.

Just a couple months later, in June, Laffer signed an open letter calling for the end of bailouts.

The letter addressed to Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and signed by 19 prominent Republicans, besides Laffer, said:
There is no limit to worthy causes, but there is a limit to other people's money..The inside-the-Beltway crowd falsely calls these trillions of dollars a "stimulus" to the economy. But government can only give money to some people, as Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman taught all of us many years ago, by taking money from others.
When you have power centers those close to power always seem to benefit and hypocrisy just comes with the territory.

GEE offers professional and commercial staffing services under the names of Access Data Consulting, Agile Resources, Ashley Ellis, General Employment, Omni-One, Paladin Consulting, and Triad; medical staffing services under the Scribe Solutions brand; and contract and direct hire professional staffing services under the Accounting Now, SNI Technology, Legal Now, SNI Financial, Staffing Now, SNI Energy, and SNI Certes brands.

In addition to being a director, Laffer, according to filings, owns about 3% of the company.

-RW

(via Salon)

Saturday, June 27, 2020

KAUFMAN: US Capitalism Has Been Shattered

Henry Kaufman
Henry Kaufman (92) was a former senior partner of Salomon Brothers and, during the early part of the 1980s, the bond market reacted to every word he said.

He was such an influential Wall Street analyst that when David Stockman was head of the Office of Management during the early part of the Reagan administration, he visited Kaufman in New York City to try and convince him there was a Reagan plan to bring the U.S. budget under control.

Kaufman didn't buy it.

Now some 40 years later, Kaufman is still delivering sharp messages that should be paid attention to,

He is out with an op-ed in the Financial Times on the current state of capitalism.

I don't agree with everything he has written in the essay but he does make some very important observations and provides much-needed warnings that few are making right now.

Here are the key snippets:
American capitalism is rapidly disappearing. Its demise has been under way for some time and the economic devastation wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic is the latest blow to our political economy.
---
 [C]apitalism is being rapidly replaced by statism — a form of political economy in which the state exercises substantial centralised control over social and economic affairs.

In the US, the federal government and the Federal Reserve sit atop statism...

Historically, the Fed has been viewed as somewhat independent from immediate political interests. But the central bank’s response to the onset of the pandemic-related recession shows that its quasi-independence is quickly evaporating, contributing to the emerging statism....

It is buying not only government bonds but also corporate bonds — including low-quality issues, mortgage obligations, municipal bonds and exchange traded funds. The central bank also is working with the Treasury to get loans to small and medium-sized businesses. Its balance sheet has already swollen by an astonishing $3tn to more than $7tn since the start of this year. And financial markets have come to expect the Fed to intervene in response to any sharp decline in equity prices.
---

With the federal government and the Fed firmly joined at the hip, the transformation of capitalism into statism is gaining momentum, perhaps irreversibly. This is a great departure not only from the vision of the US founders but also, I suspect, it is not the kind of economic system most Americans living today want to leave for future generations.
We need many more men like Kaufman right now but I am glad we have at least him.

-RW

Friday, June 26, 2020

EU Moves Toward Travel Ban on U.S.



The European Union moved closer to recommending that travelers from the U.S. shouldn’t be allowed to enter the bloc after July 1, according to a draft list being considered by officials, reports Bloomberg.

Diplomats have mostly agreed on 18 countries, including Canada, Japan and South Korea, that should be allowed into the EU because their level of new Covid-19 cases meets the bloc’s criteria, according to a list seen by Bloomberg.

-RW

Trump Administration Files Brief with the Supreme Court Arguing Against Obamacare



Late Thursday, the Trump administration filed a brief with the Supreme Court calling for the entirety of the Affordable Care Act to be overturned.

The brief was filed in a case before the Supreme Court where Texas and other conservative-led states argue that the ACA was essentially rendered unconstitutional after Congress passed tax legislation in 2017 that eliminated the law’s unpopular fines for not having health insurance but left in place its requirement that virtually all Americans have coverage, reports the Associated Press.

If the health insurance requirement is invalidated, “then it necessarily follows that the rest of the ACA must also fall,” Solicitor General Noel Francisco writes.

The objection is on a technicality but I will take it if it ends this socialist program. Of course, it is not clear how the Supreme Court will rule and it is not clear what Trump would replace it with. He is not exactly Frédéric Bastiat.

-RW

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Big Win For Banks: Regulators Ease Volcker Rule


U.S. banking regulators are about to ease restrictions created in the aftermath of the Great Recessions, reports CNBC.

The news is sending bank stocks surging today.

Federal Deposit Insurance Commission officials said on a call that they are loosening the restrictions from the Volcker Rule, allowing banks to more easily make large investments into venture capital and similar funds.

The banks will also be able to avoid setting aside cash for derivatives trades between different units of the same firm, potentially freeing up billions of dollars in capital for the industry.

Of course, there should have never been these regulations on the industry in the first place.

Paul Volcker is dead and now his silly micro-managing rules are also gone.

Of course, the big picture problem remains, the fractional reserve banking structure that results in the creation of money out of thin air which creates distortions in the economy and the business cycle (See: The Mystery of Banking).

-RW

Southern California Retailers Requesting 'Exact Change' Because of "Federal Reserve Rules"


NoMask.info reports:
An employee at a Southern California Arco gas station told me that the sign wasn't there yesterday , but that when he returned to work this morning, management had put the signs up.
The sign reads "Due to covid-19 circumstances and Federal Reserve rules, please have exact change ready (coins.)"
No exact change, no problem, use your debit card.

This just by coincidence, of course, moves us closer to a cashless society where banksters and the government will be able to track all our spending.

#StockingUpOnBrownPaperBags

-RW

Another White House Economist Is Bailing



On Monday, it was reported that one of President Trump's top economic advisers, Kevin Hassett,  was leaving his position in the White House.

During a recent Rose Garden ceremony, Trump called on Hassett to speak. He counted on Hassett.

Hassett is an unpaid adviser but it is an odd time for him to leave with the economy a mess as a result of the lockdowns. But he is not the only senior economist leaving.

Thomas J. Philipson, acting chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, will leave his post by the end of June, White House spokesman Judd Deere said in an email to the Washington Post.

“After 3 great years at CEA I am departing back to University Chicago soon that permitted an unusual extended 3 years of leave,” Philipson wrote on Twitter. “It’s been an honor and privilege to work for and with this President!”

In addition to Philipson and Hassett, those who have announced their departure from the White House in recent months, according to the Post, include: Andrew Olmem, special assistant to the president for economic policy and deputy director of the White House National Economic Council; Eric Ueland, who served as the White House director of legislative affairs and played a key role in negotiations with Congress over the stimulus; and Joe Grogan, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council.

I will allow readers to make their own guess as to what is going on but it doesn't look good.

Hug your gold coins.

-RW

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

GNC Files for Bankruptcy; May Close 1,200 Stores


The lockdowns have claimed another victim.

 GNC Holdings Inc, the vitamin and herbal supplement retailer, has filed for bankruptcy, with plans to close at least 800 to 1,200 locations. It has a total of 4,691 locations.

The company filed for Chapter 11 protection late Tuesday night in the U.S. bankruptcy court in Wilmington, Delaware.

GNC had been trying to reduce its nearly $900 million debt load amid falling sales at its brick-and-mortar stores when the coronavirus pandemic forced thousands of locations to close temporarily, cutting off a major revenue source, notes Reuters.

-RW

What the Hell is This?

Stephanie Kelton pulled this out of a generally negative review.


My review of Kelton's book will be out on Monday.

It will be difficult for her to pull a quote out of it that she will want to use in marketing.

About the most positive thing I say about the book is that "It is a disaster from start to finish."

There are factual errors in the book that would cause a serious monetary economist to be embarrassed and I will present a major new critique of one of the founding principles of MMT that I have never seen made before.

Stay tuned.

-RW



'Dead Wrong' Shuts Down

Johan Norberg has announced today that he has shut down his popular video series on free markets, "Dead Wrong with Johan Norberg."

He promises to be back at some future point in some other format.

Norberg put out 172 episodes and launched his first episode on December 22, 2015.



-RW

University of Chicago Hangs Tough: Harald Uhlig Restored as JPE Editor

 Harald Uhlig
Here is the statement from the University of Chicago economics department, which refers to charges made against  Harald Uhlig:
Statement on Discriminatory Behavior
June 12, 2020

The Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics wholeheartedly endorses the University of Chicago’s statement opposing discriminatory behavior:
The University of Chicago does not tolerate intimidating, hostile or offensive discriminatory behavior that targets groups or individuals, and we take seriously any matter that interferes with educational program participation. Such behavior is in direct contradiction to the University’s values that everyone must have the opportunity to participate fully in an open and questioning environment. The University is currently reviewing claims that a faculty member engaged in discriminatory conduct on the basis of race in a University classroom.  The Journal of Political Economy has also placed the faculty member on leave from his role as a journal editor.
 UPDATE
June 22, 2020
The University has completed a review of claims that a faculty member engaged in discriminatory conduct on the basis of race in a University classroom.  The review concluded that at this time there is not a basis for a further investigation or disciplinary proceeding.  The University’s policy on harassment, discrimination, and sexual misconduct is posted here.  In light of this outcome, the Journal of Political Economy has returned the faculty member to his role as journal editor.

For the backstory see:
-RW

The Meaning and the Mind of an American


Richard Ebeling emails:
I have a new article on "The Meaning and the Mind of an American":

In many ways, America seems to be at a possible crossroads of what it will be as a country: one still premises on the idea of liberty, or further in the direction of collectivism in its modern identity politics version grounded in a new tribalism.

In this context, it is worth asking and reminding ourselves what it has historically meant to be an “American.” In my article this week, I highlight that unlike many other countries, we do not identify ourselves as a nation in terms of ethnicity, or language, or religion, or race.

Instead, ours has been a joint nationality based on an idea: individual freedom and the diversities of pluralistic life through networks of voluntary association rather than government command and control.

We have been moving away from this idea for a long time, and it is current getting worse. But without it, the historical meaning of being an “American” will be lost.

Best,
Richard
The full article is here.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Trump Administration China-Hater Walks Back Negative Comments On Trade Deal

Peter Navarro

“It’s over,” Trump trade advisor Peter Navarro told Fox News yesterday in an interview after US stock markets closed about a work-in-progress trade agreement between the United States and China.

He said the “turning point” came when the United States learned about the spreading coronavirus only after a Chinese delegation had left Washington following the signing of the Phase 1 deal on Jan. 15.

“It was at a time when they had already sent hundreds of thousands of people to this country to spread that virus, and it was just minutes after wheels up when that plane took off that we began to hear about this pandemic,” Navarro said.

After markets declined overseas on the comment, Navarro walked back his comments in a statement saying they were taken “wildly out of context."

 President Trump followed with a tweet:
Navarro is one dangerous and economically ignorant dude. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the White House, even if just to cut the lawn.

-RW

Yale Economist: The Decline of the U.S. Dollar Could Happen at ‘Warp Speed’



Stephen Roach, a Yale University senior fellow and former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman, tells MarketWatch that his forecast for a sharp deterioration of the U.S. dollar could be a very near-term phenomenon, not an event that looms off in the distance.

“I do think it’s something that happens sooner rather than later,” he says.

“In a COVID era everything unfolds at warp speed,” Roach told MarketWatch on Monday. He pointed to the contraction of the U.S. economy from an employment rate that was hovering around a 50-year low at around 3.5% near the start of 2020 to one that shows some 49 million people unemployed since the pandemic took hold in March. He also noted the rapid and unprecedented fiscal and monetary response that has ballooned the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet to more than $7.2 trillion from $4 trillion at the start of the year as examples of the celerity at which the currency market could change.

I have been making pretty much the same points in the EPJ Daily Alert.

The G.L.S Shackle kaleidoscope is turning.

I wrote last week:
I like to keep in mind what the economist G.L.S Shackle wrote in Epistemics & Economics: A critique of economic doctrines (1991) P76:
The business scene and its participants can be looked on as a staging contest of rival orientations, rival ambitions, rival exploitations of the world. It is capable, for all the analyst can tell ex ante facto, of realizing some one or other of these visions in some degree, and thus of presenting an appearance of momentary or temporary orderliness during the ascendancy of one orientation and its sponsors. Or the contest may be inconclusive and sterile, and result in a period of rudderless backing and filling of the sails and of untidy, blind struggle and groping for decisive policy. It will be a kaleidic society, interspersing its moments or intervals of order assurance and beauty with sudden disintegration and a cascade into a new pattern. Such an account of the politico-economic process may at various epochs or in the course of various historical ages appear less or more suggestive and illuminating.
The kaleidoscope is now turning with regard to the economy and the economic models. During such a period, if we can sense out just one or two significant things about the economy before the pack, that can be very important. All other data can just be considered parts of the kaleidoscope continuing to settle. It's not important.

The two things I have focused on now in the EPJ Daily Alert is that, while most of the other data continue to settle down, the big things to know are that the stock market will climb (and confuse most because of the kalidescopic period we are in) and also that price inflation will climb (also confusing many).

Part of the price inflation coming will, of course, be because of the collapsing dollar on foreign exchange markets.

-RW

Monday, June 22, 2020

Trump Extends and Expands US Immigration Restrictions


President Trump will extend a suspension of immigration into the US, banning green card applications for the rest of the year and introducing restrictions on other visa categories, including those for high-skilled jobs, reports the Financial Times.

A senior official told the Times that rump was also limiting other visas, including H-1Bs, which are frequently used by technology companies, and H-2s, which are used for lower-skilled jobs.

Of course, the cover story is that the restrictions are being imposed in response to the coronavirus, but it is really an anti-immigrant move driven by confusion about immigrants and the labor they bring to the US which raises the general standard of living.

This confusion is evidenced by an official telling the Times that the restrictions would create employment opportunities for roughly 525,000 Americans.

A couple of years back, I discussed the problem with this thinking even when it related to low skilled workers.




RW

How Big is the Next Bailout Going to Be And What Will Be the Consequences?




The COVID-19 related bailouts are not stopping.

There are trillions more dollars the Federal Reserve is going to have to print out of thin air.

The Washington Post's Robert Samuelson sets the scene (my highlight):
It can be said without fear of contradiction that the government’s strategy for dealing with the economy’s pandemic collapse is utterly simple: Throw money at the problem. Lots of money. That’s the chief legacy of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, or Cares Act.

Remember, it and other related measures will cost $2.4 trillion over a decade, with more than 90 percent being spent in 2020 and 2021. There were those $1,200 checks for most households (for couples, the phaseout began at income of $150,000). Unemployment insurance was sweetened by adding $600 to weekly payments. The Paycheck Protection Program lent up to $10 million to firms with fewer than 500 employees — loans that were converted into grants if the businesses used the funds to maintain workers’ salaries. State and local governments got $150 billion. Airlines got ­$46 billion.

This was the mother of all bailouts — and it’s not finished yet. The amounts above must be increased by roughly $3 trillion, representing what the Federal Reserve has lent to keep credit flowing, prevent financial panic and stimulate a recovery. Is this the end of it? Nope. What comes next? You guessed it. More bailouts. Conceivably, the next stimulus could be even larger than the last

Note well: There is nearly zero discussion of the price inflation threat looming because of this massive money pump--that's right nearly zero.

The discussion of the importance of conservative fiscal policy, never an important topic in recent times, has now almost completely disappeared.

Keep this in mind, nearly the entire economics community has not shouted out any type of warning about a great inflation wave developing that should be easy to spot.

#SavedForFutureReference

-RW

Sunday, June 21, 2020

On Declining Fed Asset Purchases

Scott Olmsted emails:
A chart at ZeroHedge may be worth a comment.

It shows Fed asset purchases declining, even going negative.

How to reconcile this with your explanations? Perhaps there are many other avenues of money creation. There must be others like me who will puzzle over this.


RW response:

This is just picking a data point without understanding its relation to the big picture.

Fed assets are important but as you surmise there are plenty of other ways for the money supply to increase, especially now since the Fed has lowered the reserve requirement to zero.

That is, in a very important way, Fed assets are much less significant now. Ignoring regulatory capital requirements for a minute, a bank can create any amount of new loans (that is create new money) regardless of the Fed reserves it has.

From the Federal Reserve:
As announced on March 15, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020.  This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions.
 The only thing holding banks back now is regulatory capital requirements, not reserves at the Fed.

Further, you really shouldn't look at just one week or a couple of weeks of data, you need to look over a period, such as 13 weeks. Reserves have grown by roughly $3.3 trillion since the lockdowns hit. Taking away $74 billion is a rounding error.






 And, most important, 13-week annualized money supply growth continues to explode.

There is a Nationwide Coin Shortage



Speaking Wednesday before the House Financial Services Committee, Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jay Powell reported a coin shortage in the country.

“With the partial closure of the economy, the flow of coins through the economy has gotten all…it’s kind of stopped,” Powell said. “We are well aware of this and are working with the Mint and we are working with the reserve banks. And as the economy reopens, we are seeing coins begin to move around again.

On Monday, the Fed said in a press release that coin production and distribution activities had been significantly hampered by the coronavirus lockdowns, leading to a de facto rationing of what banks could obtain for their customers, reports The Wall Street Journal. Although production has been curtailed, demand has been rising as the nation reopens, which has led to the shortage, the Fed said.

This is certainly not a crisis that will bring the economy to its knees but it does point to my earlier warning that there are likely to be supply disruptions in the economy because of the lockdowns that are not immediately evident--some of which could be more serious than a coin shortage.

-RW

Cochrane Questions the 'Spine' of Stanford University Administration

Stanford University
Economist John H. Cochrane, a Senior Fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, has a commentary at his blog post, The cancel culture twitter mob comes to economics, where he discusses the actions taken against Harald Uhlig after a left-wing attack.

Uhlig, a University of Chicago professor, was also editor of the respected establishment publication Journal of Political Economy.

Uhlig questioned the soundness of defunding the police. That did it. "The race was on to call Uhlig a racist" notes Cochrane.

The JPE advisory board (Robert Shimer, Lars Hansen Steve Levitt and Philip J. Reny) announced that Uhlig would be placed on temporary leave pending the results of an investigation.

The specific charge cited by the advisory board came via a tweet:
Cochrane explains his concern:
[T]he JPE, on Friday, was clearly not just responding this accusation.  There is no way on this green earth that a tweet made on Thursday about a comment made in class six years ago leads to being suspended from the JPE on Friday, absent a mob demanding just that head for previous tweets about defunding the police.  And an allegation of misbehavior in class would justify suspending Harald from teaching classes, maybe.

I spent much of my last few years of teaching afraid that I would say something that could be misunderstood and thus be offensive to someone.  Many of my colleagues report the same worries.  It is not good for open and honest communication in the classroom if a tweet about a comment six years ago can instantly destroy you.

Moreover, this is an extremely unusual action. I have known the JPE for 35 years. Not once that I am aware in this time has a JPE editor been publicly suspended for anything. There have been good editors and bad editors. There have been editors who found, improved, and published great papers, and editors who did not perform as well. Most of all there have been periodic crises caused by editors who let dozens if not hundreds of papers pile up, leaving many unattended to for years. Yes, those were eased out, and new editors came in to clean up the mess.  Not one of these editors was ever publicly suspended. And no mention was made of any untoward action by Harald as editor -- or even that there is or is contemplated any review of his performance as editor.

Why do I write? Sure, I'm just as afraid of  the Red Guards of our twitter mob as the rest of you, and reluctant to offer contrary opinions. The Krugmans, Wolfers, and other assorted Jacobins are waiting for me to write or tweet one sentence that can be taken out of context and demand my head.
 He then goes on to claim this about Stanford, the institution he is now affiliated with:
I doubt the upper levels of administration at Stanford have any more spine in defense of conservative and libertarian speech than do those of Chicago. But we must speak for free speech before it's too late. If you donate money to a university, you have a special duty to speak up and let them know where you stand.  Chicago in particular has a courageous statement in favor of free speech.  Demand that they honor their fine words with courageous action.  Others, like my Stanford don't even have the courage to state it. Demand that they do.
At a time like this, when the Only Blacks Matter crowd is roaming, Cochrane has to be considered heroic for speaking up in support of free speech.

 -RW

Saturday, June 20, 2020

This is What "We Are Open for Business" Looks Like in San Francisco

San Francisco is now allowing retail stores to open for in-store traffic.

Here is a look at how that is working out in the face of no social distancing protests.

I don't remember the bombed-out Bronx of the late 1970s-early 1980s looking this sad.



The Westfield Mall is also open but with a large police presence outside.


I stopped in Macy's and there wasn't much traffic but there were at least 3 customers deep at every cashier, so those in the store appeared to be doing serious buying.

-RW

The Federal Reserve's New Concern About "Systemic Racism"



Is the Federal Reserve going to use "systemic racism" as another reason to continue its massive money pumping?

Money pumping is truly out of control.

The 13-week annualized money supply growth that I track is now climbing at a rate of 57.4%. Yes, this is not a typo, 57.4%.

Here is the current 13-week annualized money supply compared to the growth over the last 40 years.


And now it seems the Fed is looking for new reasons to continue this extraordinary money printing.

Federal Reserve reporter for Bloomberg reports:
Fed leaders, led by Chair Powell, are talking about inequality in a serious way I have not heard in a long time...

The Fed is also talking about racism in a way I have never seen before – Powell bringing up racial equality in his [Humphrey Hawekins] testimony and Juneteenth today – has a chairman ever done that?
Of course, the only tool the Fed has is money printing, so Powell is hinting at the Fed battling inequality by even more money pumping.

Here's more from James Politi at the Financial Times and the new Fed "concern" (my highlight):
When Jay Powell convened the most recent meeting of Federal Reserve policymakers, his agenda included an unusual item for a central bank — the mass protests against racial injustice that followed the police killing last month of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Mr Powell had prepared a public statement he wanted to run by Fed officials. They approved, and the Fed chairman read it at his news conference the next day. There was “no place at the Federal Reserve for racism”, he said, “and there should be no place for it in our society”.

His statement last week reflected a big change at the US central bank: its growing focus in recent years on income inequality and the role racism has played in perpetuating the problem...

One result has been a marked increase in the emotional content of commentary by Fed officials. Neel Kashkari, a former Goldman Sachs banker and George W Bush administration veteran who heads the regional Fed in Minneapolis, said he found it “shocking” that the officers who killed Floyd “never blinked” and “never hesitated”. He said on Twitter: “It indicates institutional racism that is actively taught and reinforced.”

The economic implications of this social framework were spelt out by the first African-American to lead a regional Fed, Raphael Bostic, president of the central bank’s Atlanta arm. In a note issued after last week’s meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee, he described “systemic racism” as a “yoke that drags on the American economy”.

“This country has both a moral and economic imperative to end these unjust and destructive practices,” Mr Bostic said. “It is time for this cycle to stop.”...

“Understanding these disparities is vitally important to us,” Mr Kashkari said. “If we allow the labour market to heal and not pre-emptively tap the brakes, it turns out that’s actually good for groups that are marginally attached to the labour force, those with less education, and minority groups.”
"Not pre-emptively tap the brakes," this is code for letting the money pumps run. There is nothing about money printing that helps the black community. It only helps sectors like Wall Street who get the new money first. In fact, it hurts low wage earners, many of whom are black, who are low on the totem pole when it comes to getting newly printed money in their paychecks.

Maybe now we will see some go out to those close to race hustlers in the black community but it is a con to think it will reach the average black person. The Fed is not in business for that.

Bottom line: The Fed has hit a new low, blaxploitation of the worst kind. This isn't about gritty urban tough guy blacks in films. This is about white man elite hustlers coming up with yet another reason to print more paper with green ink, the only color they really are concerned about.

The black lives movement should be calling for an end to the Fed.

-RW

Coronavirus Lockdowns to Cause Earlier Insolvency Across the Country of Failing Public Employee Pensions




By Craig Eyermann

The pensions of public employees, the people who work for state or local governments, are in trouble.
After years of promises by politicians—who, like public employees themselves, have done little to provide funds to pay for the generous retirement benefits—many public employee pension funds are now at increased risk of insolvency as the economy faces turmoil from the coronavirus lockdowns.
This long-festering problem has become so bad that some pension analysts think that several large public employee pension funds will become insolvent by 2028, if not sooner.
The Financial Times reported recently on the findings of Jean-Pierre Aubry at Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research (CRR), who singled out two large public employee pension funds with hundreds of thousands of members as being particularly at risk of insolvency, unable to pay the pensions promised to their members because they haven’t been putting enough money into them for years:

More than 320,000 members of the New Jersey Teachers and Chicago Municipal public pension plans face the biggest risks as severe cash outflows are draining the assets of these two schemes.
A slow recovery for the US stock market could result in Chicago Municipal’s funded position falling from 21 per cent this year to just 3.6 per cent by 2025. This would eave assets to cover just three months of the fund’s retirement payments, according to CRR’s analysis.
New Jersey Teachers is also burning through cash, with its funded position projected to decline from 39.2 per cent to 23.2 per cent over the next five years. By that time, New Jersey Teachers would have assets to cover 19 months of retirement payments.
That fate will come despite the intervention of central banks, who flooded markets with funds specifically to avoid pension losses.The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) recently published a report showing how pension funds in OECD countries recorded a massive loss of approximately $2.5 trillion during the stock market meltdown in February through late March. Shortly, after that, central banks intervened with monetary cannons to rescue stock markets and other financial assets to avoid pension returns from going negative.
Although the stock market has since gone on to a remarkable recovery, thus limiting the damage that pension investments in stocks may realize, the economic damage from the lockdowns will weaken state and local government’s ability to fund public employee pension funds through their constriction of ordinary commerce.
There are three potential ways to solve this problem. First, the politicians and public employees could face up to reality and acknowledge their failures to fund their retirement benefits by cutting their promised benefits to sustainable levels.
Second, politicians and public employees could demand that taxpayers in their states and districts bail them out by paying higher taxes so the public employees can keep their generous pension benefits.
Third, the politicians and public employees could demand the federal government bail them out, which would require the government taking on trillions of dollars more in debt, on top of the trillions it has already racked up this year alone, following the economic damage caused by the shutdowns of so much of the U.S. economy in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Shutdowns of businesses that were ordered by state and local government politicians, who so clumsily implemented them, they were far more damaging than they needed to be.
Craig Eyermann is a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute and the creator of the Government Cost Calculator at MyGovCost.org.
The above originally appeared at the Independent Institute.

Friday, June 19, 2020

Just Who the Hell is Running Joe Biden's Brain?



As Joe Biden picks up steam in the presidential campaign, it makes sense to look at which economists are advising him. One problem. It's a secret.

The New York Times reports:
Few aspects of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s presidential campaign are shrouded in as much secrecy as the counsel he receives on the economy: which advisers have the most sway with the presumptive Democratic nominee, what ideas have the greatest currency, and what new policies Mr. Biden will ultimately embrace to address the racial inequities now animating protests nationwide.

Some broad contours have become clear. Mr. Biden plays down concerns about the deficit during this recession, aides say, and he has begun soliciting ambitious plans to bridge the gap in earnings and wealth between black and white Americans. His regular briefings are by a small group of liberal economists and others with roots in the Obama White House and Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign. And he sees the economic recovery as his foremost duty if he wins the presidency.

Yet the details of the policymaking process are closely held. Mr. Biden is now seeking input from more than 100 left-leaning economists and other researchers, but there is little clarity on who has true influence...A three-page document, sent last month ahead of the committee’s first online meeting, warned participants not to circulate email from committee leaders or refer to “the candidate or to the campaign” in documents.

“You are not to disclose the names of others who are involved in the committee to nonmembers,” according to the memo, which has not previously been reported.
 Members were allowed to tell friends and colleagues that they are participating, it continued, but “you should not, however, disclose your participation on social media such as Facebook or LinkedIn or in your professional bio.”
A section about press inquiries began, “Simply put, do not talk to the press.”
 I am not expecting any sound economic policy if Biden gets elected but at this point, we don't even know what bad direction he would go in. It might be very bad.

There is a hint that the secrecy may be because the advisers are radical left economists.

The Times again:
Conversations with policy experts close to the Biden campaign suggest that Mr. Biden has thus far leaned on a core group of advisers who roughly match his own ideological standing within a Democratic Party that has steadily moved left since Barack Obama won the White House in 2008. Mr. Biden appears to have widened that group to include some of the young and sharply progressive thinkers who drove the policy debate leftward during much of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign.
To wit: Asked over email if he was advising Mr. Biden, Gabriel Zucman, one of the architects of Senator Elizabeth Warren’s proposed tax on high-wealth Americans, referred a reporter to an email address for Mr. Biden’s press office. That address matched one that campaign officials sent to members of the newly formed economic policy committee, with instructions to give it to reporters in the event of questions about Mr. Biden.
It's clear that whoever is running Biden wants the radicals in.

More from The Times:
Mr. Biden has faced pressure from progressives who have objected to his receiving advice from Lawrence Summers, a former Treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and top economic aide to Mr. Obama whom they fault over his record in areas like financial regulation and climate change.
Waleed Shahid, a spokesman for Justice Democrats, a progressive group, warned against relying on what he described as the “old guard” of Democratic economists.

I have written previously about the radical Zucman :
 Cal Berkeley economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez hate capitalism, free markets and the accumulation of wealth.
They are Elizabeth Warren's two top economic advisers.
And in a post titled Krugman is Promoting Two Tax Maniacs, I wrote::
 Zucman has called for taxing private charities and philanthropic foundations, in addition to wealthy incomes.
Zucman and Saez are also the developers of Elizabeth Warren's wealth tax.
-RW

Ludwig von Mises on Eugenics

Ludwig von Mises
Phil Magness spotted this odd phraseology in a new article by Patrick Deneen, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of Notre Dame:
He replied with a dance as to what he really meant, distancing Mises from eugenics:
For the record, this is what Mises had to say about eugenics in his book Planned Chaos:
It is vain for the champions of eugenics to protest that they did not mean what the Nazis executed. Eugenics aims at placing some men, backed by the police power, in complete control of human reproduction. It suggests that the methods applied to domestic animals be applied to men. This is precisely what the Nazis tried to do. The only objection which a consistent eugenist can raise is that his own plan differs from that of the Nazi scholars and that he wants to rear another type of men than the Nazis. As every supporter of economic planning aims at the execution of his own plan only, so every advocate of eugenic planning aims at the execution of his own plan and wants himself to act as the breeder of human stock. 
The eugenists pretend that they want to eliminate criminal individuals. But the qualification of a man as a criminal depends upon the prevailing laws of the country and varies with the change in social and political ideologies. John Huss, Giordano Bruno and Galileo Galilei were criminals from the point of view of the laws which their judges applied. When Stalin robbed the Russian State Bank of several million rubles, he committed a crime. Today it is an offence in Russia to disagree with Stalin. In Nazi Germany sexual intercourse between "Aryans" and the members of an "inferior" race was a crime. Whom do the eugenists want to eliminate, Brutus or Caesar? Both violated the laws of their country. If eighteenth century eugenists had prevented alcohol addicts from generating children, their planning would have eliminated Beethoven. 
-RW