Government – Page 76 – artdiamondblog.com

Big Government Slows Economic Growth

(p. A15) Americans are debating whether to substantially expand the size of their government. As Swedish economists who live in the developed world’s largest welfare state, we urge our friends in the New World to look carefully before they leap.

Fifty years ago, Sweden and America spent about the same on their government, a bit under 30% of GDP. This is no longer true. In the years leading up to Sweden’s financial crisis in the early 1990s, government spending went as high as 60% of GDP. In America it barely budged, increasing only to about 33%.
While America was maintaining its standing as one of the world’s wealthiest nations, Sweden’s standing fell. In 1970, Sweden was the fourth richest country in the world on a per capita basis. By 1993, it had fallen to 17th.
This led us to ask whether Sweden’s dramatic increase in the size of government contributed to its sluggish growth. Our research shows that it did.
We surveyed the existing literature looking at the trade-offs between government size and economic growth throughout the world. While results vary, the most recent research, by Diego Romero-Avila in the European Journal of Political Economy (2008) and by Andreas Bergh and Martin Karlsson in Public Choice (2010) find a negative correlation between government size and economic growth in rich countries.
The weight of the evidence demonstrates that when government spending increases by 10 percentage points of GDP, the annual growth rate drops by 0.5 to 1 percentage point. This may not sound like much, but over 30 years this would result in the loss of trillions of dollars each year in an economy as large as America’s.

For the full commentary, see
ANDREAS BERGH AND MAGNUS HENREKSON. “Lessons From the Swedish Welfare State; New research shows bigger government means slower growth. Our country is a prime example.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., JULY 12, 2010): A15.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated JULY 10, 2010.)

India Government Spends Billions to Subsidize Fuel Use

“An employee filled an oil drum in New Delhi on Friday. India’s government has decided to reduce popular fuel subsidies.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

I smiled when I saw the ironic photo that appears above. It seems to imply that with government subsidies, even bicycle riders will buy motor fuel.

(p. B3) MUMBAI, India — The Indian government on Friday reduced popular fuel subsidies, a long-delayed change that will help policy makers reduce a big budget deficit but one that will also worsen already high inflation.

Policy makers said the government would stop subsidizing gasoline. Diesel, kerosene and natural gas would continue to receive support at a slightly lower level. India spent about $5.6 billion to subsidize fuel in the last fiscal year, which ended in March. State-owned energy companies added the equivalent of an additional $4.4 billion by selling fuel below its cost.
India and other big countries committed to eliminating energy subsidies at a Group of 20 meeting last year, but policy makers here had repeatedly put off the politically difficult change.

For the full story, see:
VIKAS BAJAJ. “India Cuts Subsidies for Fuels.” The New York Times (Sat., June 26, 2010): B3.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated June 25, 2010.)

Chicago’s South Side Welcomes Wal-Mart: “The Audience Stood and Cheered”

“Supporters of a proposed Wal-Mart store in Chicago demonstrated at a City Coumcil zoning panel hearing Thursday.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B4) “We need jobs for our neighborhood, and Wal-Mart is willing to come, and they’re willing to provide the jobs,” said the Rev. Dr. D. Darrell Griffin, the pastor at Oakdale Covenant Church.

Politicians who supported the Wal-Mart store said they did so in part because of employment and revenue for the city.
“There are major corporations willing to invest significant money within our communities, which has not been done, really, since the ’60s, when a lot of the corporations left the communities after the riots,” said Howard B. Brookins Jr., a member of the council. “This is huge for us.”
. . .
On Thursday, the zoning committee meeting was filled with about 200 onlookers wearing T-shirts with the Wal-Mart logo and slogans like, “Our neighborhood. Our jobs. Our decision.”
Before he asked for a simple yes or no vote, Daniel Solis, chairman of the zoning committee, told the crowd, “We are now the model in this country.”
After the unanimous vote — which sends the proposal to the full City Council, where it is expected to pass next week — the audience stood and cheered.
“It’s going to bring jobs and help the community,” Shawn Polk, 20, a college student who lives near the proposed store, said afterward.

For the full story, see:
STEPHANIE CLIFFORD. “Wal-Mart Gains in Its Wooing of Chicago.” The New York Times (Fri., June 25, 2010): B1 & B4.
(Note: the online version of the article is dated June 24, 2010.)
(Note: ellipsis added.)

Former French Student Protest Leader: “We’ve Decided that We Can’t Expect Everything from the State”

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

(p. A16) “The euro was supposed to achieve higher productivity and growth by bringing about a deeper integration between economies,” says Simon Tilford, chief economist at the Centre for European Reform, a London think tank. “Instead, integration is slowing. The lack of flexibility in labor and product markets raises serious questions about the likelihood of the euro delivering on its potential.”

Structural changes are the last great hope in part because euro zone members have few other levers for lifting their economies. Individual members can’t tweak interest rates to encourage lending, because those policies are set by the zone’s central bank. The shared euro means countries don’t have a sovereign currency to devalue, a move that would make exports cheaper and boost receipts abroad.
The remaining prescription, many economists say: chip away at the cherished “social model.” That means limiting pensions and benefits to those who really need them, ensuring the able-bodied are working rather than living off the state, and eliminating business and labor laws that deter entrepreneurship and job creation.
That path suits Carlos Bock. The business-studies graduate from Bavaria spent months navigating Germany’s dense bureaucracy in order to open a computer store and Internet café in 2004. Before he could offer a Web-surfing customer a mug of filter coffee, he said, he had to obtain a license to run a “gastronomic enterprise.” One of its 38 requirements compelled Mr. Bock to attend a course on the hygienic handling of mincemeat.
Mr. Bock closed his store in 2008. Germany’s strict regulations and social protections favor established businesses and workers over young ones, he said. He also struggled against German consumers’ reluctance to spend, a problem economists blame in part on steep payroll taxes that cut into workers’ takehome pay, and on high savings rates among Germans who are worried the country’s pension system is unsustainable.
“If markets were freer, there might be chaos to begin with,” Mr. Bock said. “But over time we’d reach a better economic level.”
Even in France, some erstwhile opponents of reforms are changing their tune. Julie Coudry became a French household name four years ago when she helped organize huge student protests against a law introducing short-term contracts for young workers, a move the government believed would put unemployed youths to work.
With her blonde locks and signature beret, Ms. Coudry gave fiery speeches on television, arguing that young people deserved the cradle-to-grave contracts that older employees enjoy at most French companies. Critics in France and abroad saw the protests as a shocking sign that twentysomethings were among the strongest opponents of efforts to modernize the European economy. The measure was eventually repealed.
Today, the now 31-year-old Ms. Coudry runs a nonprofit organization that encourages French corporations to hire more university graduates. Ms. Coudry, while not repudiating her activism, says she realizes that past job protections are untenable.
“The state has huge debt, 25% of young people are jobless, and so I am part of a new generation that has decided to take matters into our own hands,” she says. “We’ve decided that we can’t expect everything from the state.”

For the full story, see:
MARCUS WALKER And ALESSANDRA GALLONI. “Europe’s Choice: Growth or Safety Net.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., MARCH 25, 2010): A1 & A16.

Government Financing Is Not Best Method to Finance Creativity

(p. B4) Government financing is not the best method to prod companies to be creative, said Edmund S. Phelps Jr., a professor of economics at Columbia University who won the Nobel Prize in 2006. But he said it could work.

He spoke at the forum about dwindling innovation in the United States economy. China, India and Brazil are catching up with innovative output, he said, but not Russia.
A high-technology start-up, he said, inherently runs more risk if it can present its product to only one potential buyer — the government — rather than to a range of customers, some of whom may want the product, he said.
“If Russian politicians see that their own prosperity, and that of their people, lies in a more arms-length relationship between the government and business, that would open a lot of possibilities,” he said.

For the full story, see:
ANDREW E. KRAMER. “Russia Plans to Promote Technology Innovations.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., February 4, 2010): B4.

Not All Entrepreneurs Believe in Property Rights

“Titan Cement’s Bob Odom in March at the site of a proposed plant near Wilmington, N.C. The company says hundreds of jobs would be created.” Source of book image: online version of the WSJ review quoted and cited below.

Is it just me, or does entrepreneur Lloyd Smith, quoted below, come across as a bit arrogant in believing the government should enforce his view of what Wilmington should be like, even if that means violating the property rights of the owner of the land on which the cement plant will be built? (And even if that means that would-be janitor Ron Givens remains unemployed.)

(p. A3) WILMINGTON, N.C.–The old economy and the new economy are squaring off in this coastal city, which is having second thoughts about revisiting its roots in heavy industry.

Titan Cement Co. of Greece wants to build one of the largest U.S. cement plants on the outskirts of the city and is promising hundreds of jobs. The factory would be on the site of a cement plant that closed in 1982 and today is populated mainly by fire ants, copperhead snakes and the occasional skateboarder.
The proposed $450 million plant by Titan America LLC, Titan’s U.S. unit, is welcome news to Ron Givens Sr., a 44-year-old unemployed Wilmington native. Mr. Givens’s father supported 12 children while working at the former Ideal Cement plant, and Mr. Givens and two brothers have now applied for jobs with Titan. “I will apply for janitor if that’s what is going to get me into that plant,” he said.
But thousands of opponents have petitioned local and state politicians to block the plan. They object to the emissions from the plant and say it will scare off tourists, retirees, entrepreneurs and others who might otherwise want to live here.
An initial state environmental review has dragged on for two years, and critics of the plant have filed a lawsuit seeking to further broaden the review. The governor, amid public pressure, has asked the State Bureau of Investigation to probe the plant’s permitting process.
“That’s their tactic: Delay, delay, and at some point Titan will leave,” said Bob Odom, Titan’s general manager in Wilmington, of opposition efforts.
Among the most vocal opponents is a fast-growing class of high-tech entrepreneurs and telecommuters who moved to Wilmington in recent years, drawn to the temperate climate, sandy beaches and good fishing. They argue the plant, by curbing the community’s appeal, will cost more jobs and tax revenue in the long run than it produces.
“I think we can be discriminating,” said Lloyd Smith, a 43-year-old entrepreneur who moved here from northern Virginia in 2001 and founded Cortech Solutions Inc., a neuroscience company with nine employees and about $5 million in annual sales.
The standoff in Wilmington reflects a broader tug-of-war across the country as communities try to kick-start employment. It is unclear how much manufacturing will power the long-term U.S. economic recovery–even in southern states that have long embraced heavy industry but have begun to feel the new economy’s pull.

For the full story, see:
MIKE ESTERL. “Clash of Old, New Economy; Cement Plant Is Resisted by Some Neighbors Who Would Rather Lure High-Tech Jobs.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., April 6, 2010): A3.

Source of graph: scanned from print version of the WSJ article quoted and cited above.

Obama Delays Biotech Innovation

Source of graph: scanned from the print version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A8) The crop-biotechnology industry, growing frustrated as it watches the approval time for new seeds almost double under the Obama administration, is pressuring Washington to clear inventions more quickly.

The logjam at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which must clear genetically modified seeds, is slowing the launch of products that could give farmers more alternatives to seeds from crop biotech giant Monsanto Co.
Also, some biotech-industry executives worry the delays signal that the Obama administration, which has painted itself as pro-biotech, is gearing up for a far tougher analysis of the potential environmental impact of these crops, which could make it harder for inventions to reach the marketplace.
On average, a genetically modified seed takes 1,188 days to pass federal scrutiny, almost twice as long as in 2008, the last year of the Bush administration, according to the Biotechnology Industry Organization, a Washington, D.C., trade group.
“There is concern we might see other countries move ahead of the U.S.,” said Sharon Bomer Lauritsen, executive vice president of food and agriculture at BIO, who added that the delays “might stifle investment in what has been a very dynamic part of the U.S. economy.” BIO’s members include hundreds of companies such as DuPont Co., Syngenta AG and Monsanto, as well as academic institutions.

For the full story, see:
SCOTT KILMAN. “Biotech Firms Seek Speedier Reviews of Seeds; Approval Time for Genetically Modified Crops Doubles under Obama as Some Fear Tougher Stance; Feds Blame Logjam.” The Wall Street Journal (Weds., April 28, 2010): A8.

Mob Museum Financed from Local, State and Federal Tax Dollars

“The $42 million museum has been financed through a series of state, federal and local grants. It is set to open next March.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. 4) The idea for the Las Vegas Museum of Organized Crime and Law Enforcement was seeded when the city bought the 1933 federal courthouse and post office from the federal government for $1 in 2002, with the strict understanding that the building — one of the oldest in Southern Nevada — be used for cultural purposes.

For much of the middle of the last century, organized crime ruled the Strip, developing and managing an array of casinos, skimming their way to success. Federal prosecutors put an end to their reign in the 1980s. The city determined its historical relationship to organized crime — and the role the courthouse played in it — made the site a perfect fit.
. . .
The $42 million project has been financed through a series of state, federal and local grants, and the work has progressed a bit glacially as money has trickled in.
The project, once listed as one that could stimulate this city’s embattled economy, was attacked by Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, when city officials suggested that it might qualify for federal stimulus money.

For the full story, see:
JENNIFER STEINHAUER. “‘2 Mob Museums in Las Vegas, Ready to Go to the Mattresses.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., April 25, 2010): 1 & 4.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article is dated April 24, 2010 and has the title “Vegas Mob Museums, Set to Go to the Mattresses.”)

Barney Frank Calls European Agriculture Policy “Ridiculous”

(p. A13) Mr. Frank said the Jeffersonian notion that farming was a superior form of life has led to subsidies and protectionism in the U.S. Similar problems exist in the European Union. Saying EU agriculture policy is “ridiculous,” Frank claimed European farmers should be bought out.

The idea that the “noble yeoman” must be protected at all costs leads to protectionism, Frank said.

For the full story, see:
Neal Lipschutz. “Davos Dispatch: Frank vs. Thomas Jefferson on Farming and Protectionism.” The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., Jan 28, 2010): A13.

A version of the brief story appeared online as:
Neal Lipschutz. “Davos Live; Frank Takes On Jefferson Over Farming.” Posted Jan 28, 2010. http://blogs.wsj.com/davos/2010/01/27/frank-takes-on-jefferson-over-farming/?KEYWORDS=Thomas+Jefferson+Protectionism

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Are Still a “Burgeoning Money Pit” for Taxpayers

(p. 1) If you blinked, you might have missed the ugly first-quarter report . . . from Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giant that, along with its sister Fannie Mae, soldiers on as one of the financial world’s biggest wards of the state.

Freddie — already propped up with $52 billion in taxpayer funds used to rescue the company from its own mistakes — recorded a loss of $6.7 billion and said it would require an additional $10.6 billion from taxpayers to shore up its financial position.
The news caused nary a ripple in the placid Washington scene. Perhaps that’s because many lawmakers, especially those who once assured us that Fannie and Freddie would never cost taxpayers a dime, hope that their constituents don’t notice the burgeoning money pit these mortgage monsters represent. Some $130 billion in federal money had already been larded on both companies before Freddie’s latest request.
But taxpayers should examine Freddie’s first-quarter numbers not only because the losses are our responsibility. Since they also include details on Freddie’s delinquent mortgages, the company’s sales of foreclosed properties and losses on those sales, the results provide a telling snapshot of the current state of the housing market.
That picture isn’t pretty. Serious delinquencies in Freddie’s single-family conventional loan portfolio — those more than 90 days late — came in at 4.13 percent, up from 2.41 percent for the period a year earlier. Delinquencies in the company’s Alt-A book, one step up from subprime loans, totaled 12.84 percent, while delinquencies on interest-only mortgages were 18.5 percent. Delinquencies on its small portfolio of op-(p. 2)tion-adjustable rate loans totaled 19.8 percent.
The company’s inventory of foreclosed properties rose from 29,145 units at the end of March 2009 to almost 54,000 units this year. Perhaps most troubling, Freddie’s nonperforming assets almost doubled, rising to $115 billion from $62 billion.

For the full commentary, see:
Gretchen Morgenson. “Fair Game; Ignoring the Elephant in the Bailout.” The New York Times, SundayBusiness (Sun., May 9, 2010): 1-2.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the article was dated May 7, 2010.)