Author Archives: Bernard Munk

About Bernard Munk

Dr. Bernard E. Munk has had a career spanning academia, public service as well as long involvement as an owner and operator of companies engaged in both trading and production. He has also been a financial advisor to private investors, family offices and hedge funds.

Making Carbon Taxation Simple, Universal and Equitable in the USA

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A recent Mid East seminar at Columbia featured a fascinating presentation by Jason Bordoff, the leader of the Columbia Global Energy Center. Unfortunately, due to technical and time constraints, there was little time to discuss the relative efficacy of carbon taxation or its current policy substitute, carbon trading.

Carbon taxation (or carbon trading) is now common but not uniform at all among many industrialized countries, but is likely to become more addressed as concerns about global warming become more amplified in democratic countries.

This script is based on a recent, rather extensive review of the subject by Professor Govinda R. Timilsina (also of the World Bank) that is published in the current edition of the Journal of Economic Literature 2022 60 (4) pp 1456-1502. The review is comprehensive both in terms of the author’s text but also for its extensive Bibliography on these issues. My purpose is to focus attention on the political economy side of Carbon Taxation rather than to elaborate the Timilsina survey.

  1. Carbon taxation makes sense even if one doesn’t subscribe to all the alleged “findings” in the growing literature in Climatology and the current public debates over the incidence and implications of global warming. One doesn’t have to accept the most extreme global warming “findings,” to be in favor of more rational taxation programs for hydrocarbons as there are other benefits to a rationally implemented, long term policy contour of a generalized carbon taxation format for both the United States and for other countries as well.
  2. Internationally, it is unlikely that all countries will implement an identical carbon tax profile and to some extent, this is not detrimental to the success of carbon taxation. It allows poorer, less industrialized nations a longer period of wealth growth as smaller contributors to the world’s emission of various hydrocarbon gasses and particulates. It will also allow them to raise the relative price of carbon emission as their national wealth grows.
  3. A striking benefit for carbon taxation as compared to the trading of carbon emission permits is that a uniform carbon tax rate that escalates over time is its automaticity and comparative lack of a centralized and growing bureaucracy to police the various aspects of carbon trading permits. In principle, one can achieve roughly the same result from either system, but trading the rights to emit carbon gasses involves substantial regulation and enforcement personnel—in short, an enlarged bureaucratic functions. All that is required is a clear statement of the rate of the carbon tax for each form of the many hydrocarbons in a mature, industrial economy. The carbon content of natural gas, or gasoline or diesel or fuel oil is a scientific datum, so the beginning tax rate can easily be determined for each type of fuel. What perhaps matters more is the gradient of the curve that describes the tax rate over time. Presumably, the tax rate should grow in concrete steps as the costs of hydrocarbon emission rise and as the desire to “clean up the environment” seems to grow apace. We see that program as extending over say a 30 year or longer horizon as we gain knowledge about the social costs of emitting hydrocarbons. A long contour also incentivizes private agents to modify production processes and the actual products that use hydrocarbons. How steep the time curve of taxation should be or the intervals at which the tax rate increases can be settled in a nationally held debate over costs and benefits.
  4. Tax universality—In our view, everyone should be subject to the tax because rising carbon taxes should motivate users to reduce their consumption of hydrocarbons in whatever form they arise: driving a car or truck, consuming electricity derived from a hydro carbon input, taking a plane or train or bus trip; going on tour ship, or simply buying products or services whose inputs require hydrocarbons. The main issue that we see arising in the United States is the old bugaboo, FAIRNESS, with respect to the income class of the consumer. That’s the essential political economy concern.
  5. Traditional Welfare Economics attempts to differentiate between welfare economic costs even if there is no “compensation” paid. However,compensation is a politically loaded topic, and, in my view, the easiest way to neutralize the compensation issue is to rebate ALL OF THE COLLECTED CARBON TAXES PAID back to the public. That is to say, carbon taxation should not be viewed or used by politicians as a disguised income tax. Rather, it seems to me that the equity considerations militate redistributing the tax revenues gained from carbon taxation on the base of the withholding taxes paid on wage and salary income only.
  6. Various countries have instituted carbon taxation, with different rates of tax per unit of carbon emission and with different time profiles of taxation. The fact that different countries with different political systems create different “cost-benefit” implications from different tax rates over time is an artifact of different political systems. So be it. The real issue is health and not every country will value the incremental benefit of restricting carbon emissions. For the United States, there is an issue that could be resolved within the understanding that it is a Federal not a State issue that should fall under the interstate prohibition of barriers to trade between separate States.
  7. A Federal Statute that levied the same tax rate and time profile would be highly desirable. It would achieve a badly needed uniformity for the penalty of emitting hydrocarbons as between states. Presumably, States that feel more strongly on ecological grounds could add their own additional time profile and we might hope they would remit proceeds similarly rather than use State carbon taxation as a State revenue device. They could refund by using their own State income tax structures. At the least, a Federal minimum would exist. A Federal Statute would also not require a vast bureaucratic undertaking, another benefit of universality.
  8. Ironically, I made this same proposal to Senator Al Gore at a non-partisan Economics and Environment event held in Golden Colorado in 2005 or 2006 before the release of his major social media contribution, An Inconvenient Truth. The Senator seemed to like it a lot at the time, but I am unaware of any subsequent speeches or advocacy publications by Senator Gore advocating this policy proposal.

Defending Freedom is Good Governance

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Freedom-lovers all around the world are hoping that tonight President Biden will reverse his previous floundering efforts in foreign policy and announce a substantial support package for the brave Ukrainians. Ukrainians, like their forbears in Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania before them, have revolted against Russian totalitarianism. Our President has the opportunity to show he is a President of whom freedom-loving Americans can be proud. He needs to stand up tall and place the full panoply of American capabilities at the disposal of those who are sacrificing their lives and fortunes by defending their country against Russian expansionism through military force. Moreover, he needs to do it tonight at the traditional State of the Union speech to both Houses of Congress.

His recent behavior doesn’t suggest that he will do that. But that is what he needs to do at a time when it counts! A strong statement backed up with immediate and substantial movement of military supplies and civilian goods to feed, clothe and heal the wounded is called for. The already-invaded economy of the Ukraine needs help now, not the promise of sanctions that may help, if at all, only after their emergency has passed.

American foreign policy, particularly regarding the twin threats from China and Russia, has looked weak and flailing. Under this President, real deterrence has not been in play. Deterrence begins with positive displays of meaningful action which our enemies need to worry about. This is not a time to cater to the prevalent view of “no more foreign wars.” The Ukrainians have demonstrated that they are willing to fight and die for their country. We must immediately supply them for their struggle. This illegal attempt to take over a free country by military force is exactly what we must resist with substantive actions. The Free World cannot afford any further delay by America in meaningful support for the Ukraine.

Totalitarian countries watch what we do, not what we say. They formulate their own strategies by estimating how we will respond. A flaccid response by the USA is an open invitation by Putin and Ji pin to-implement their own aggressive policies with military means now and in the future.

This is nothing new. Have we learned nothing from the history leading up to WWII? Have we no guidance from our struggles during the Cold War? Didn’t the confrontation with the
Khrushchev-led Soviet Union with Missiles in Cuba in 1962 teach us anything? A Putin-led Russia wishes to similarly assert its world presence by demonstrated military power coupled with a nuclear threat precisely because our leadership has been a blither of words lacking forceful actions. This is the time, Mr. President, to “walk the walk.” Americans of all political persuasions know this. Your prestige hangs on your actions, not your speech, and so does the prestige of our country. As Benjamin Franklin once said at that critical moment of the signing of our Declaration of Independence, “We must all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately.”

Mr. President: Don’t denigrate our traditions of defending freedom by talking brave but doing little. Now is not the time for the “summer soldier and the sunshine patriot.” Now is the time to be the Leader of free peoples everywhere and of those who yearn still to be Free.

The Whole World is Watching!

A TIME FOR SENATE GOVERNANCE: the Powell Re-nomination

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Not by whim or chance did our Founding Founders create a tripartite division of governance even though they gave significant power to the Presidency. It is time for our senior legislative body to step up to that responsibility and reject the confirmation of the Chairman of the Federal Reserve to another 4-year term.  Why?  Because he and his Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve have failed to carry out their dual mandate.

Any thoughtful observation of the recent inflation data shows that inflation is neither transitory—as the current Chairman has previously asserted it would be over the  past year—nor is it anywhere close to the self-proclaimed 2% boundary that the Fed had so often stipulated for inflation governance in the past. It is well past the time that the Senate carried out its mandated  (Constitutional) task of “advise and consent.”

Failure to reject a Powell second term would be a feckless concession to Executive power and another long step down the path of faulted political governance. Sadly, but likely, we should anticipate another failure by this present Senate.

The only reason that key Senators in the confirmation process could possibly evoke is that a failure to confirm Powell now might produce an even less qualified and “woke” nominee!  The evidence of that likelihood are this President’s other nominees’ to other important financial positions. Specifically, Ms. Raskin’s pending nomination and strong doubts concerning the orientation of Ms. Lisa Cook’s nomination to the Fed’s Board of Governors.1

If the Senate confirms the Powell reappointment it will have failed to assert the responsibility given it by our Constitution. If it denies the reappointment, it will have to face the likelihood of a rudderless Board of Governors at least until the November elections when its voice can be important in telling this President that he must act prudently in finding a more adequate leader of the Fed. A rejection now could accelerate a more reasonable appointment process to begin earlier!

  1. Professor Harald Uhlig has recently posted a strong letter on that nomination in a recent Wall Street Journal opinion column. “The Fed doesn’t need a Censor,”
    The Wall Street Journal 2/13/2022. [↩]

The Fed on Trial

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The Powell Fed deserves Talleyrand’s opprobrium of the Bourbons: “learned nothing and forgot nothing.”

Some sixty- odd years since Friedman and Schwartz published their monumental tract on the monetary history, this Fed believed and populated its belief of transitory inflation after the greatest monetary expansion in US history. All this while Powell’s renomination for another 4 year term as Fed Chair awaits Senate confirmation.

A Senate approval will be an unthoughtful victory for those who relish a triumph of politics over economics. But, is that a victory for good governance? What should we expect from a Fed that thinks that Global Warming and the pursuit of Diversity trump the already abused dual mandate of restrained inflation and maximum employment?

The only issues now are how big a jump in the Fed target rate we will get on March 16, if not before? How high will the target rate be pushed? Will balance sheet contraction get onto the Fed’s policy horizon?

The Fed has created far more market uncertainty by its laggard monetary policy actions and its attraction to being a significant agent of social change. As a Central Bank, this Fed has gone far beyond legendary Chairman William McChesney Martin Jr.’s obiter dictum that the Fed “is independent in Government.” Martin at least had the courage to defy LBJ and raise interest rates by 50 basis points in 1965 despite a trek to the President’s Texas-ranch as the Viet Nam war heated up spending.

The Fed’s actions should make Senators who will vote on Powell’s re-nomination think carefully. Do they really take Central Bank independence seriously? Or, are they happy that the Fed played a significant role in unleashing the cruelest “tax of all”— inflation?

If a Company underperformed its projections as badly as this Fed, an activist Board would find another CEO. That would be standard corporate governance. The Senate can’t fire the President, but it could give a vote of “no – confidence” on the President’s CFO! That is unlikely, but re-confirmation is a bad example of proper governance over America’s central bank.

Milton Friedman; Freedom’s Greatest Advocate

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(presentation to the Liberta Society; Buenos Aires 7/29/2021)

Image courtesy: clubdelalibertad.com

While Liberalism, in its classic 19th Century sense, is suffering a decline as the State extends its dominion over free markets around the world, the crucial linkage between Freedom and Free Markets for Liberty remains. Its greatest spokesman during the the 20th Century was Professor Milton Friedman. Even in Argentina where Government controls have eroded the potential for economic growth and a rising standard of living, the kernel of Friedman’s ideas remains, hopefully to re-emerge and energize the Argentine economy and the freedom of its people.

In preparing these notes, I have the good fortune to be spending a leisurely vacation in Greece (now in Thessaloniki, but I wrote this in Athens), the home of the first “democratic society” of which we have some considerable records. Ironically, the world is recovering from a hideous, international “plague” (Covid 19) which has limited our freedoms in so many ways, while enabling Governments to intervene in our ability to freely associate, to innovate, to travel, to teach, to express our ideas, to engage in free commerce as well as many other activities, all in the name of “protecting” us! Secondly, we might note that Athens was doubly set back at the beginning of the Peloponnesian war by a “Plague,” (not yet quite clearly identified) which crippled her response to the Spartan attacks and ultimately claimed the life of it most noted political leader, Pericles. I point that out because in my subsequent remarks about Professor Milton Freedom, the question of political leadership is not fully treated as it must be if we are to fully understand the pathways he outlined for us over his long career.

I had the good fortune of being a student at Chicago during Professor Friedman’s prime years in the early 1960’s when many of his ideas were often ridiculed both by other professional economists and by Government officials who had rather Statist views on the role of Government, descending from the then prevalence of Keynesian ideas left over from the last great experiments in Government (The Great Depression and the end of WWII.)

The first edition of Milton Friedman’s luminary work, Capitalism and Freedom, came out in 1962 in the midst of my graduate years at Chicago…and we know that it was not well received at the time. In fact, most of us who were totally overwhelmed by Friedman’s scope of interests in economics and politics, and his well noted analytical capabilities, found much of Capitalism and Freedom as “old news” already featured in some ways by his lectures in Price Theory—which we all took—and his efforts to change the focus of monetary policy. (Via his monumental book with Anna Schwartz, The Monetary History of the United States was published in 1963).

Another irony struck me as I reviewed the Forward (by Binyamin Appelbaum) to Capitalism and Freedom in his statement that capitalism “had fallen into some disfavor,” at the time. (1962). Capitalism and Freedom came out during the great fascination by many students at the time with the alleged success of Soviet Communism (e.g.Sputnik) and some mystic appreciation of what appeared to be the political success in China of the CCPC under Mao Tze tung. The brutalities and exterminations of millions that had occurred during the earlier years of these regimes were not widely documented until Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago appeared in the West in the late 1970’s.

I mention this chronology precisely because we are witnessing a second episode of Capitalism’s “disfavor” in the United States, and also in many other countries. Witness the changes in Latin America in Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela. And, in the USA, where Capitalism has raised our standard of living to its highest level in history–and reduced poverty by immense amounts wherever it has been given a chance to flourish. If you watch the US Media or read the majority of its newspapers, you wouldn’t know that. It would appear that “Capitalism and Freedom” has failed and failed badly! When we see the epithet of “Racism” cast about so freely by young people, often from middle class backgrounds, you have to wonder just what kind of education has disabled their knowledge of U.S. history; their awareness of brutal coercion in many non-capitalist societies; and, their understanding of the actual data of economic progress over the last 60 years since Milton Friedman published “Capitalism and Freedom.”

Milton Friedman has often been cited as the outstanding economist of the 20th Century. As far as his technical contributions, there is no dispute that his efforts in the 1940s-50s-60s-70s illuminated much of macroeconomics and still continue to bear fruit. His policy analyses of housing, of the virtues of Charter Schools as a market based educational alternative, of the flexibility offered to macro policies through elimination of exchange controls and his long advocacy of abolishing restrictions to international trade are part of the lexicon of freer markets and freer economies.

Normally, a man who covered such a range of social policy should be satisfied with such a menu of accomplishment, but I think the Milton Friedman that we knew in the 1990’s and 2000’s was not completely finished with both his analysis of current conditions nor his vivid assertions that free markets were essential to political freedom. Let me amplify those thoughts a bit.

When we look around the world—particularly at the nominally “democratic states,”— that is those states that are not governed by some form of totalitarian regime, we do observe a growing division between people who believe they are “free” and those who believe they are “controlled” by some amorphous and ill-defined cabal of special interests. We see this in the “Black Lives Matter” movement; in the looting and burning of certain sections of American Cities often by protestors willing to turn their demonstrations into violence. We see it from supporters of our previous President who attacked the Congress in a physically violent protest in which several died. We see it in protests in Europe and Eastern Europe on both the so-called “left” and on the “right.” It almost appears as if we are watching history repeat itself.

Marx claimed that history repeats, the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Should we think of what is going on today in nominally democratic states a farce? Perhaps, the second time is a tragedy as well? Or, is there some inherent connection between the seeming success of capitalism in the nominally democratic states and the discontent of our younger generation who frequently storm against “Capitalism,” the very system that has given them such enlarged economic opportunities and that has stood at the base of their political freedom.

In my view, there is a common theme that resonates in our current age of discontent. It is what I would call the “Doctrine of Fairness.” Apparently, the fact that free markets generate immense outpourings of innovation and that markets reward such innovations so well in an age of globalization, are principle ingredients to the Discontent of many. Invidious comparisons are drawn by many individuals between their own personal economic status and the highly publicized outcomes of the very wealthy. The latter, for a multitude of reasons, have gone far beyond the rewards of simple labor income. Indeed, much of their wealth and the income from that wealth is financial, stemming from their ownership of intellectual and physical capital. The wealthy cannot spend but a fraction of what their human and physical capital produces and their lifestyles are far different from the “average” family. Of course, as we know, in economies whose markets are much less than free, the “rich” do proportionately even better than do the “rich” in much less restricted markets, but that fact is scarcely addressed in public media. One has only to look at the kleptocracies around the world for a demonstration of that kind of inequality.

Furthermore, it appears to the Media and to the “common man” that the political clout by the wealthy with bureaucrats and senior politicians is far greater than those whose income derives solely from Labor. The implication of that observation, whether it is true or not, we can put on the back burner for now, is that “special interests” get served far faster and more thoroughly than the “mass” of the people. That observation takes me back to Ancient Greece, and the troubled history of the first great democracy, Athens.

Any fair reading of Athenian politics in the 5th Century BC shows that while it is true that there were always “leading” families and individuals who had closer access to important political and governing figures, Athenian politics was in fact heavily influenced, even dominated by the mass of Athenians who had significant political rights rather than significant property. One can even argue that it was the “Mass” that forced the bad choices of Leaders and Strategies (Sicily for example) that led to the ultimate defeat of Athens. Athens never recovered from its failed campaign in Sicily against Syracuse.

Applebaum in his notes brings out the fact that in his later years the intimate connection that Friedman had initially drawn between the necessity for Free Markets to undergird Freedom itself became perhaps less clear to him. Yet, the clear distinction between a totalitarian state and the freedom of those who are so ruled by such a state and a freely elected democratic state remains. But within democratic states, there are infinite variations in content and in style over property rights and free markets. Some democratic states are freer than others. Fairness of outcomes differs between countries. In some states, overwhelmed by the numbers who are clearly POOR, restricting the freedom of others and changing the distribution of output in a significant way becomes a more appealing choice than allowing extremely capable and industrious people to rise into the class of great wealth. The political outcome is to restrict by taxation or by Government spending programs the growth of the economy as a whole. Furthermore, and this is an area that Milton Friedman did not much opine about publicly, the outcome in different states is heavily influenced by the quality and the understanding of the leaders chosen by the voters.

Inevitably, the poorest voters—who by numbers are the largest class of voters—are persuaded they can have “Guns and Butter,” to use the old antonyms. As a result, politicians compete to spend Other People’s Money in order to gain or retain political office. They change tax laws and conditions of competition attempting to legislate “Fairness of Outcome.” Many of these measures limit the growth in output and often do not even readjust the outcomes to be more “FAIR.” However, appearances count more than substance. Voters are influenced by Presentation, not by actual data.

Abraham Lincoln said, “You can’t fool all of the people all of the time,” but a closely competitive political society doesn’t need the vote of all of the people. It just has to move the margin a bit. Binary voting outcomes are unlike market outcomes. Markets move output by the amount of dollars spent on the output—proportional representation so to speak. Voting outcomes are binary. One votes for A or B but political trades among the political winners can create a working majority of interest. What may count more in a binary choice system is moving the percentages slightly because then the “winner” can restructure the game. The Winner can become a virtual totalitarian. The bottom line of this kind of analysis is the old wisdom contained in the writers of the The Federalist Papers concerning the danger of a Tyranny of the Majority. It always exists in a democracy. Once a majority controls the Government, it can change the rules for political competition.

In my judgment Milton Friedman was the greatest spokesman for Freedom in my lifetime. He lived a very long and extremely productive intellectual life that had many spinoffs. He never gave up his defense of Freedom and the importance of Free Markets in enhancing and protecting that Freedom. However, the implementation of Freedom also requires good leadership ===leadership that is willing to see through the mist of “Fairness”. Politicians and bureaucrats focus on Now; good leadership looks for good outcomes in the Future. We have a deep need for another Milton Friedman to show us how that linkage can be achieved and how to choose leaders that will stay on the right path to that future.

Let me conclude with a few takeaways. In short, Liberals have a big load to lift!

Capitalism and Freedom is an elegant and persuasive argument for Freedom as opposed to growing Government Control… but if we look around the world, LIBERALISM IS NOW LOSING

Whether we look at nominally democratic governments or those governments that are explicitly totalitarian, THE STATE IS WINNING

As empirical economists trained by Milton Friedman, we should be asking why are we losing?

My own conclusion, not necessarily documented by clever and much needed research, is that people seem to accept several major premises:

  1. The functions of Government have grown exponentially over time: Explicit control over individual behavior is vastly preferred to the imperceptible functioning of markets.
  2. Human behavior seems to be heavily influenced by Risk Aversion. People are more prone to the allure that Government can fix the lottery characteristics of human outcomes —in spite of the vast empirical evidence of Government failure to contrive Equality of outcome! Governments can help Equality of Opportunity — they may not be able to create Equality of Outcome.
  3. A survey of Friedman’s critiques of Government intervention leads to some severe disappointments: public housing, social security, professional licensure, minimum wages, the end of the corporate income tax and assignment of undistributed earnings to shareholders as taxable income, the end of the inheritance tax and establishment of a flat income tax, ending tariffs and quotas, farm subsidies, and clearly, monetary authority rules vs bureaucratic authority.
  4. LIBERALISM’s VICTORIES ARE FEW

a. volunteer army— not mentioned in CAPITALISM AND FREEDOM
b. some progress on Charter Schools with small progress on use of public resources for charter schools
c. the negative income tax

WE HAVE OUR WORK CUT OUT FOR US – LET’S GO TO WORK! WE NEED TO START WINNING AGAIN

Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom (p. ix). University of Chicago Press. Kindle Edition.

Link: http://clubdelalibertad.com/cycle-of-tributes-tribute-to-milton-friedman/

Cosmetic Economics and Politics

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Written March 3 after the close of the market yesterday before the Super Tuesday Primaries results but not posted until March 4 8:36 AM

The Fed’s Move: and the market’s reaction

Widely debated by the savants of economic forecasting at the end of last week, the Fed cut 50 basis points off its target rate. This came after a kind of coordinated mouthing of mutual support by various countries in the G-7, but no substantive policy change. Australia, hard hit by China’s massive slowdown had already cut their rate prior to the G-7 communique and the Fed’s announcement and press conference. Continue reading →

Ostrich Policy: escalating the tariff war with China

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The present Administration wants to talk and act tough with China and has deployed various tariff and other economic tools to induce China to change some of its most important trade policies. China currently requires the transfer of American technology as the price of a firm’s “admission” into China. We don’t think that our campaign for IP protection offers a good prediction on how the Chinese will ultimately respond to our charges. We think that “selling that story” to the U.S. voter will make it much harder to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves in this current commercial policy war. Continue reading →

The Fairness Doctrine and Economic Change

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Formal economics used to be almost entirely devoted to issues of the allocation of scarce resources.  A subset of inquires, usually called welfare economics, frequently explored how  different allocative schemes affected economic welfare.  Welfare, however, had a rather arcane meaning in formal economics because inter-personal comparisons were generally frowned upon in formal theory and applications.   To get around the “dryness,” of such studies, economists adopted a compensation principle where by if at least one person was made better off and none worse off, then welfare was improved.  This skirted the issue of “fairness,” or as some wrote about it, of “justice.”   What if compensation by the winners was not paid to the losers after an economic policy change?  A mere glance at today’s media tells us that issues of “fairness” rule the day, almost to the exclusion of discussions of efficiency.   Social change is often motivated by issues of fairness and politicians of every stripe place fairness at the top of their choice menu.   But, what is fair to one person, clearly could be unfair to another.  Moreover, the achievement of “fairness,” brings with it economic costs.   The latter are often ignored, but the consequences should not be.   To truly be fair, we need to evaluate the cost of achieving fairness, however it is defined.   This is the first of a series of notes that discuss aspects of the linkage between fairness and efficiency in political economy.

Continue reading →

The Independent Fed is “a riddle wrapped up in a mystery inside an enigma”

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At a time when many fed-up voters in the UK seem to want to get out of the EU, it seems appropriate to use a Churchill quote to describe the utterly dependent nature that our Federal Reserve has chosen to acquire.   Yes, we have a nominally independent Central Bank—that is to say that once the politicos have nominated and approved a member of the Board of Governors, they technically vow to keep their “hands off.”   Of course, neither really allow a Fed to be independent, and it is hard to say that the shrill voices from 1600 or the Hill have no affect on the voting behavior of Governors. Who really knows how the Board comes to its conclusions?   If you still think the FOMC is independent, ask the Regulatory wing of the Fed if it operates as a deaf mute!

That said, 50 years ago or so, the talk in US monetary policy debates among academicians and central bankers who seemingly agreed that a Central Bank had to be politically independent and should make its decisions based on the fulfillment of whatever chartering mandate it was given.   Is it not strange, therefore, that the current FOMC finds that “international considerations” have now paralyzed its rate-making decisions? After a feeble 25 basis point (“bp”) raise in December, the FOMC has staggered and stuttered, looking around the world at what other enfeebled CBs are doing and has paused and paused and paused.   Talk about ‘waiting for Godot.” Meanwhile, rate-starved fixed income holders now have the privilege of paying their respective governments in Germany and Japan for the privilege of making their savings available over the next decade. Nearly nothing for the insurance in Germany (3 bps) but 8 bps in Japan, a far cry from holding government bonds as a default-risk free investment with a nominal positive yield.   Surely, they would have been better this year to buy Gold and stick it in a bank vault!

Meanwhile, for a Fed now fully engaged in the regulation of bank balance sheets in order to root out (still undefined) “systemic risk,”  what has happened to independent monetary policies? The answer is quite simple.  They no longer exist—and returns to Americans who wish to invest in default-risk free 10 year Govies are shrinking as well.

Oh, well—why not throw out everything we ever learned about monetary theory and policy?   If such policies don’t work (according to the Fed), there’s no point holding on to them, is there? One might ask to be shown the theory that has replaced older thinking on monetary policy, but it is to be doubted that the question would  even be heard in the board room at the Fed.   It doesn’t seem like they have a theory that governs their policy making. Maybe they are too busy telling each other how they are preventing systematic risk via their new “stress tests.”

Well, why should central banking be any different from Health Care, Internet policing, Environment Protection, and Pharma Controls?   We have entered the Grand Regulatory State—no point studying Macro anymore…it is irrelevant because the Fed is a totally Dependent Creature—as are we all in this highly regulated political environment.   We must speak correctly, we must invest correctly, we must be correct on our identification of the soldiers of terror.   We are all now quite correct, are we not?  A riddle? Yes. A Mystery? Yes.

 

Mr. Prime Minister: we need an Enigma Machine to read the Fed’s Code.   Please re-open Bletchley Park and start cracking it for us.

The Economic Costs of the Regulatory State: ‘a little hole in the dike can be as damaging as a big one. Just give it time.’

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The troubling antics of the remaining three contenders for each party’s Presidential nomination have forced me to detour from postings on Ecomentary.com far too long. Governance issues have been capturing my full attention. Let’s direct some comments to their economic policy recommendations.

Each candidate speaks of doing something for those who feel underserved or even left out of the economic benefits our economy creates. Their substantive proposals amount to two sorts of “cures.” One is to blame someone or a class of “someones” for poor economic outcomes and the other is a continuing advocacy of ‘once size fits all’ remedies—more government intervention. Actually, all three wish to use the government to “do something,” with little or no recognition that government interference is not costless to economic growth. On the contrary, increased regulation has undoubtedly contributed significantly to lower economic growth. A smaller pie, even if redistributed, is not a winning economic strategy.

The two Democrats, Clinton andSanders both argue for more government intervention, more regulation and heavier taxation (albeit more “progressive”).   Trump also argues for government intervention. He wants to punish the Chinese and other “foreigners” for American job losses. He even wants to punish American firms who relocate production overseas. Traditional Republican support for free trade has been eviscerated,  free traders have little to choose between the two parties. Restricting trade is a sure fire method to reduce growth.

One expects Democrats to try slicing up the economic pie and redistributing it to pay off the various political minorities and interest groups that Democrats depend upon to win public office. By assigning much of the blame for the 2007-2008 financial meltdown to greedy bankers, evil mortgage companies and mortgage brokers and other profit seeking financial intermediaries, Democrats don’t look deeply, if at all, into the role played by much faulted government housing policies. They continually advocate more regulation, not less. Meanwhile, instead of attacking the increased interference and regulation that deters the formation of new business enterprises, the Trump response is that voters need to pick a Winner instead of sticking with Democratic losers. Is that a policy prescription or a denial of how the economy actually works?

Neither side seems to understand that government intervention and regulation does not offer a free lunch.   They seem totally unaware that the already well-laden Regulatory State costs the US substantial economic growth. Obama always argued that the US needed to become more like Europe. He succeeded beyond all measure. The US has more regulation and lower growth. Welcome to Europe, voters!

Of course, if you think that the economic pie has been distributed “unfairly,” you probably don’t focus on how to bake a larger pie. You might not even think that regulation can affect how fast the economy grows. Former President Reagan’s remark that “Government is not the solution; Government is the problem,” has long since been forgotten, even by some claiming to be market- oriented Republicans.

In recent years, however, a number of economists have been focusing on the costs of regulation and how regulation can slow and undoubtedly has slowed U.S. economic growth. When the question is, How much does a reduction in annual growth of say 1% per year actually cost the US, when that reduction continues over say a thirty five year period, the cost is staggering. A bigger pie was available, but increased regulation destroyed a much better outcome.

A recent study published on the Mercatus.org web site (“The Cumulative Cost of Regulations,” by economists Bentley Coffey, Patrick McLaughlin, and Pietro Peretto) provides some insight. They estimate US economic growth was lowered by 0.8% per annum as a result increased regulation. Putting it more graphically, they find our economy would be 25% larger today than it actually is —-even if the costs per annum were as small as 0.8% per year. We conjecture that the annual costs might well exceed 1%.

There are many studies that show that the current level of reporting now required under environmental, health care and labor regulations pose a heavy cost burden for new, small businesses. New business formation lags in spite of very low interest rates.  Yet, it is widely understood that real economic growth comes from precisely this segment of the economy. It is also well noted, but yet unexplained, that business investment in plant and equipment has been unpredictably sluggish.   Perhaps, our declining productivity trends are not just accidents due to “slower innovation.”

These are subtle arguments but none of the candidates care or perhaps are even aware of them. They have missed the truism that a little hole in the dike can be as bad as a large one, given sufficient time. Time makes water a very powerful cumulative force. Similarly, even small decreases in annual economic growth can cumulate to a very large reduction in actual output. Increasing regulation works the same way and the US economy is badly under achieving.

It will be hard to punish the “foreigner” for our own failings. Punishing our own business sector can only worsen the problem of inadequate growth. The first step in getting well must be a proper diagnosis of our growth disease.   We become our own worst enemy when we listen to the Siren calls  for more regulation by the current candidates.