Economic Crisis – Page 26 – artdiamondblog.com

“Atlas Shrugged is a Celebration of the Entrepreneur”

“The art for a 1999 postage stamp.” Source of image: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. W11) Many of us who know Rand’s work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that “Atlas Shrugged” parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.
Rand, who had come to America from Soviet Russia with striking insights into totalitarianism and the destructiveness of socialism, was already a celebrity. The left, naturally, hated her. But as recently as 1991, a survey by the Library of Congress and the Book of the Month Club found that readers rated “Atlas” as the second-most influential book in their lives, behind only the Bible.
For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises — that in most cases they themselves created — by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.
. . .
Ultimately, “Atlas Shrugged” is a celebration of the entrepreneur, the risk taker and the cultivator of wealth through human intellect. Critics dismissed the novel as simple-minded, and even some of Rand’s political admirers complained that she lacked compassion. Yet one pertinent warning resounds throughout the book: When profits and wealth and creativity are denigrated in society, they start to disappear — leaving everyone the poorer.

For the full commentary, see:
STEPHEN MOORE. “DE GUSTIBUS; ‘Atlas Shrugged’: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years.” Wall Street Journal (Fri., JANUARY 9, 2009): W11.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Multiplier: Is it 1.5 as Team Obama Hopes; or Zero, as Barro Estimates?

(p. A17) Now we have the extreme demand-side view that the so-called “multiplier” effect of government spending on economic output is greater than one — Team Obama is reportedly using a number around 1.5.

To think about what this means, first assume that the multiplier was 1.0. In this case, an increase by one unit in government purchases and, thereby, in the aggregate demand for goods would lead to an increase by one unit in real gross domestic product (GDP). Thus, the added public goods are essentially free to society. If the government buys another airplane or bridge, the economy’s total output expands by enough to create the airplane or bridge without requiring a cut in anyone’s consumption or investment.

The explanation for this magic is that idle resources — unemployed labor and capital — are put to work to produce the added goods and services.
. . .
What’s the flaw? The theory (a simple Keynesian macroeconomic model) implicitly assumes that the government is better than the private market at marshaling idle resources to produce useful stuff. Unemployed labor and capital can be utilized at essentially zero social cost, but the private market is somehow unable to figure any of this out. In other words, there is something wrong with the price system.

John Maynard Keynes thought that the problem lay with wages and prices that were stuck at excessive levels. But this problem could be readily fixed by expansionary monetary policy, enough of which will mean that wages and prices do not have to fall. So, something deeper must be involved — but economists have not come up with explanations, such as incomplete information, for multipliers above one.
. . .
There are reasons to believe that the war-based multiplier of 0.8 substantially overstates the multiplier that applies to peacetime government purchases. For one thing, people would expect the added wartime outlays to be partly temporary (so that consumer demand would not fall a lot). Second, the use of the military draft in wartime has a direct, coercive effect on total employment. Finally, the U.S. economy was already growing rapidly after 1933 (aside from the 1938 recession), and it is probably unfair to ascribe all of the rapid GDP growth from 1941 to 1945 to the added military outlays. In any event, when I attempted to estimate directly the multiplier associated with peacetime government purchases, I got a number insignificantly different from zero.

For the full commentary, see:
ROBERT J. BARRO. “Government Spending Is No Free Lunch.” Wall Street Journal (Thurs, JANUARY 22, 2009): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Bernanke Praised FDR’s “Willingness to Be Aggressive and to Experiment”

Bernanke apparently endorsed FDR’s policy volatility. To the contrary, Amity Shlaes has persuasively argued that the policy volatility increased uncertainty, and discouraged entrepreneurial ventures, thereby lengthening and deepening the Great Depression.
Bernanke taking FDR as a mentor, is deeply disturbing. (And I regret an earlier entry in which I placed trust in Bernanke’s judgment.)

(p. A2) While Ben Bernanke was teaching economics at Princeton University in late 1999, he admonished officials in Japan for doing too little to get their country out of its economic funk. Their model, he said, should be Franklin D. Roosevelt.

“Roosevelt’s specific actions were, I think, less important than his willingness to be aggressive and to experiment — in short, to do whatever was necessary to get the country moving again,” Mr. Bernanke said in a paper on Japan’s paralysis.

Nearly a decade later, Mr. Bernanke, now the Federal Reserve chairman, is trying to follow his own advice.
. . .
Mr. Bernanke’s choices could damage several objectives that the Fed holds sacrosanct. Low interest rates and an exploding balance sheet could some day cause inflation. With so much slack in the economy and commodities prices tumbling, that looks like a far-fetched risk today. But the Fed’s novel new lending programs could be difficult to unwind quickly if the economy turns around unexpectedly, potentially leaving the financial system with more stimulus than it needs — along with inflation.
Mr. Reinhart notes that Mr. Bernanke’s approach also could open the Fed to political intrusion, something central bankers have fought for decades to avoid.
The recent debate about an auto-industry bailout was one example of the risk. Earlier this month, Sen. Christopher Dodd wrote to Mr. Bernanke asking if the central bank could help Detroit. Mr. Bernanke politely responded that he wanted to stay out of industrial policy. But after Senate action failed, the Connecticut Democrat raised the prospect of Fed involvement again at a news conference Friday.
“When the Federal Reserve is involved in more markets, more instruments and is seen to have an unlimited balance sheet and flexibility to use that balance sheet, it will be subject to political pressure,” Mr. Reinhart said.
. . .
Then there’s the biggest risk of all: the economy might not turn around. History was kind to Mr. Roosevelt because the economy got moving again on his watch, though of course it didn’t really turn around until the U.S. became enmeshed in a world war. Mr. Bernanke will be a hero if the economy rebounds. But if it doesn’t, the judgment is certain to be much tougher.

For the full commentary, see:

JON HILSENRATH. “THE OUTLOOK; Bernanke’s Fed, Echoing FDR, Pursues Ideas and Action.” Wall Street Journal (Mon., DECEMBER 15, 2008): A2.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Amity Shlaes’ wonderful book, is:
Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Capitalism’s Defenseless Fortress

Photograph by Art Diamond.

(p. 143) . . . capitalism creates a critical frame of mind which, after having destroyed the moral authority of so many other institutions, in the end turns against its own; the bourgeois finds to his amazement that the rationalist attitude does not stop at the credentials of kings and popes but goes on to attack private property and the whole scheme of bourgeois values.

The bourgeois fortress thus becomes politically defenseless. Defenseless fortresses invite aggression especially if there is rich booty in them. Aggressors will work themselves up into a state of rationalizing hostility—aggressors always do.

Source:
Schumpeter, Joseph A. Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy. 3rd ed. New York: Harper and Row, 1950.

Photograph by Art Diamond.

Confidence in Market Is Undermined by Economist-Backed Interventions

(p. A17) This year will be remembered not just for one of the worst financial crises in American history, but also as the moment when economists abandoned their principles. There used to be a consensus that selective intervention in the economy was bad. In the last 12 months this belief has been shattered.

Practically every day the government launches a massively expensive new initiative to solve the problems that the last day’s initiative did not. It is hard to discern any principles behind these actions. The lack of a coherent strategy has increased uncertainty and undermined the public’s perception of the government’s competence and trustworthiness.

The Obama administration, with its highly able team of economists, has a golden opportunity to put the country on a better path. We believe that the way forward is for the government to adopt two key principles. The first is that it should intervene only when there is a clearly identified market failure. The second is that government intervention should be carried out at minimum cost to taxpayers.

For the full commentary, see:
OLIVER HART and LUIGI ZINGALES. “Economists Have Abandoned Principle.” Wall Street Journal (Weds., DECEMBER 3, 2008): A17.

“I Want Some TARP” Satirical Video Clip

Screen capture from the link cited below.

Today (Weds., 1/21/09) on CNBC, I caught a snippet of a replay of Bill Zucker’s musical video parody of the government’s TARP (Troubled Assets Relief Program) bailout. It was funny, and mainly on-target.

You can view it on YouTube, at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGfQk9XXm24&feature=pyv&ad=3038287303

“In Spite of the Economic Crisis and Unemployment . . . Civilization’s Progress is Going Faster and Faster”

The Palace of Discovery mentioned in the passage below was a part of the 1937 Paris Exposition.

(p. 206) The mastermind behind the Palace of Discovery, French Nobel Prize laureate Jean Perrin, wrote, “In spite of the wars and the revolutions, in spite of the economic crisis and unemployment, through our worries and anxieties, but also through our hopes, civilization’s progress is going faster and faster, thanks to ever-more flexible and efficient techniques, to farther- and farther-reaching lengths. . . . Almost all of them have appeared in less than a century, and have developed or applied inventions now known by all, which seem to have fulfilled or even passed the desires expressed in our old fairy tales.”

Source:
Hager, Thomas. The Demon under the Microscope: From Battlefield Hospitals to Nazi Labs, One Doctor’s Heroic Search for the World’s First Miracle Drug. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2007.
(Note: ellipsis in the title is added; ellipsis in the quoted passage is in the original.)

Uncertainty About Government Actions Slows Recovery

In the commentary quoted below, Tyler Cowen makes the important point that recovery from the current economic crisis is being slowed by uncertainty about what the government will do next. While the uncertainty lasts, consumers will consume less, and investors will invest less.
Amity Shlaes has made a similar point about the Great Depression. Uncertainty about what policies FDR would try next, kept investors from risking their money in new entrepreneurial ventures.

(p. 5) The financial crisis is a result of many bad decisions, but one of them hasn’t received enough attention: the 1998 bailout of the Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund. If regulators had been less concerned with protecting the fund’s creditors, our current problems might not be quite so bad.
. . .
. . . Today, . . . , that ad hoc intervention by the government no longer looks so wise. With the Long-Term Capital bailout as a precedent, creditors came to believe that their loans to unsound financial institutions would be made good by the Fed — as long as the collapse of those institutions would threaten the global credit system. Bolstered by this sense of security, bad loans mushroomed.
. . .
While there are some advantages to leaving discretion in regulators’ hands, this hasn’t worked out very well. It has become increasingly apparent that the market doesn’t know what to expect and that many financial institutions are sitting on the sidelines, waiting to see what regulators will do next. Regulatory uncertainty is stifling the ability of financial markets to engineer at least a partial recovery.

For the full commentary, see:
TYLER COWEN. “Economic View; Bailout of Long-Term Capital: A Bad Precedent?” The New York Times, SundayBusiness Section (Sun., December 26, 2008): 5.
(Note: ellipses added.)

For the Amity Shlaes book mentioned above, see:
Shlaes, Amity. The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.

Only Permanent Tax Cuts Provide Effective Stimulus

Source of graph: online version of the WSJ commentary quoted and cited below.

(p. A15) The incoming Obama administration and congressional Democrats are now considering a second fiscal stimulus package, estimated at more than $500 billion, to follow the Economic Stimulus Act of 2008. As they do, much can be learned by examining the first.

The major part of the first stimulus package was the $115 billion, temporary rebate payment program targeted to individuals and families that phased out as incomes rose. Most of the rebate checks were mailed or directly deposited during May, June and July.

The argument in favor of these temporary rebate payments was that they would increase consumption, stimulate aggregate demand, and thereby get the economy growing again. What were the results? The chart nearby reveals the answer.

The upper line shows disposable personal income through September. Disposable personal income is what households have left after paying taxes and receiving transfers from the government. The big blip is due to the rebate payments in May through July.

The lower line shows personal consumption expenditures by households. Observe that consumption shows no noticeable increase at the time of the rebate. Hence, by this simple measure, the rebate did little or nothing to stimulate consumption, overall aggregate demand, or the economy.

These results may seem surprising, but they are not. They correspond very closely to what basic economic theory tells us. According to the permanent-income theory of Milton Friedman, or the life-cycle theory of Franco Modigliani, temporary increases in income will not lead to significant increases in consumption. However, if increases are longer-term, as in the case of permanent tax cut, then consumption is increased, and by a significant amount.

For the full commentary, see:
JOHN B. TAYLOR. “Why Permanent Tax Cuts Are the Best Stimulus.” Wall Street Journal (Tues., NOVEMBER 25, 2008): A15.

Gains in Productivity Due to “Bipartisan Removal of Regulations that Stifle Competition and Innovation”

In the Clinton administration, Martin Neil Baily was the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers. He is one of those Democratic economists, along with Brad DeLong and Larry Summers, who appreciates the importance of innovation through the process of creative destruction, in making our lives better.

(p. A15) The economic attention of U.S. government and business leaders is fixed squarely on the downturn and financial crisis. Whether or not bailouts are proper short-term medicine, economists agree that the long-run solution for restoring economic growth lies in raising productivity.

The single best measure of a country’s average standard of living is productivity: the value of output of goods and services a country produces per worker. The more workers produce, the more income they receive, and the more they can consume. Higher productivity results in higher standards of living.

So how has U.S. productivity grown recently? Unfortunately, very slowly. After averaging 2.7% productivity growth from 1995 through 2002, annual growth of productivity in the nonfarming business sector has slowed dramatically — to just 1.7% in 2005, 1.0% in 2006, and 1.4% in 2007. At this new average rate of under 1.4%, it would take nearly 52 years for average U.S. living standards to double — versus just 26 years at the earlier average. Signs of this slowdown are apparent, particularly in the waning competitiveness of U.S. sectors like automobiles, financial services and information technology.

On Monday, we are issuing a new report that details a set of policies the government could implement to boost U.S. productivity growth. Time is of the essence in addressing this challenge because the economy-wide impacts of structural policies tend to appear only gradually, in part because of many-year corporate planning horizons. It is also because faster productivity growth will ease the burden of massive U.S. fiscal deficits now projected for the coming years.

A central theme of this report is the critical role that competitive product markets play in spurring productivity growth and boosting standards of living. One of the great U.S. policy successes of recent decades has been the bipartisan removal of regulations that stifle competition and innovation in product markets. U.S. industries that face strong competitive intensity are more productive than highly regulated or otherwise sheltered industries. This competition, in turn, yields higher incomes and greater choices for consumers.

Maintaining the productivity benefits of product market competition requires sound choices in areas including trade and investment, regulation and infrastructure.

For the full commentary, see:
MARTIN NEIL BAILY and MATTHEW J. SLAUGHTER. “What’s Behind the Recent Productivity Slowdown.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., DECEMBER 13, 2008): A15.