If we see a car that runs into a brick wall at 80 miles an hour, we don’t ask why its front end is messed up. In this same vein, why on earth would be looking for a reason for a lack of jobs in an economy that has a gap of close to $1 trillion a year in annual demand?
This is what Robert Atkinson does in a column in the Huffington Post. If we take him at face value, Atkinson is actually confused about the reason that the economy is lacking jobs. He must have missed the housing bubble and its collapse.
See, the housing bubble was directly creating hundreds of billions of dollars of annual demand by spurring record levels of construction. The housing bubble also generated close to $500 billion in annual consumption through the housing wealth effect. The bubble generated more than $8 trillion in additional equity, almost all of which has now disappeared.
After the bubble collapsed, housing fell from more than 6 percent of GDP to less than 2 percent of GDP, a loss in annual demand of more than $600 billion. The loss of housing wealth, coupled with the loss of close to $5 trillion in stock wealth, led to a falloff in annual consumption of close to $500 billion. Lost tax revenue also led to cutbacks in annual government spending at the state and local level of close to $100 billion.
In short, we have lost more than $1.2 trillion in annual demand. The stimulus package came to around $300 billion per year for two years. Guess what, $1.2 trillion is much more than $300 billion.
The long and short is that the economy is operating way below its potential because there is nothing to replace the gap in demand created by the collapse of the housing bubble. The lack of demand means a shortage of jobs and high unemployment. There is nothing mysterious about this picture, it is about as simple and straightforward as it gets.
I suppose, in this weak economy, that it is good that people can get jobs looking for solutions to mysteries that do not exist. (Make work jobs can make sense if there is no productive employment available.) But there is no reason that the rest of us should be bothered by solutions for non-existent problems.
[Btw, the fact that the stimulus was too small is not 20/20 hindsight, it is what those of us who know economics said at the time.]
If we see a car that runs into a brick wall at 80 miles an hour, we don’t ask why its front end is messed up. In this same vein, why on earth would be looking for a reason for a lack of jobs in an economy that has a gap of close to $1 trillion a year in annual demand?
This is what Robert Atkinson does in a column in the Huffington Post. If we take him at face value, Atkinson is actually confused about the reason that the economy is lacking jobs. He must have missed the housing bubble and its collapse.
See, the housing bubble was directly creating hundreds of billions of dollars of annual demand by spurring record levels of construction. The housing bubble also generated close to $500 billion in annual consumption through the housing wealth effect. The bubble generated more than $8 trillion in additional equity, almost all of which has now disappeared.
After the bubble collapsed, housing fell from more than 6 percent of GDP to less than 2 percent of GDP, a loss in annual demand of more than $600 billion. The loss of housing wealth, coupled with the loss of close to $5 trillion in stock wealth, led to a falloff in annual consumption of close to $500 billion. Lost tax revenue also led to cutbacks in annual government spending at the state and local level of close to $100 billion.
In short, we have lost more than $1.2 trillion in annual demand. The stimulus package came to around $300 billion per year for two years. Guess what, $1.2 trillion is much more than $300 billion.
The long and short is that the economy is operating way below its potential because there is nothing to replace the gap in demand created by the collapse of the housing bubble. The lack of demand means a shortage of jobs and high unemployment. There is nothing mysterious about this picture, it is about as simple and straightforward as it gets.
I suppose, in this weak economy, that it is good that people can get jobs looking for solutions to mysteries that do not exist. (Make work jobs can make sense if there is no productive employment available.) But there is no reason that the rest of us should be bothered by solutions for non-existent problems.
[Btw, the fact that the stimulus was too small is not 20/20 hindsight, it is what those of us who know economics said at the time.]
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In an article about the impact of the euro crisis on the U.S. economy the NYT told readers:
“the American economy has shown signs of life recently, with talk of a double-dip fading and job growth picking up.”
People who were knowledgeable about the economy did not talk of a double-dip recession. There was a growth slowdown in the first half of the year due to one-time factors. This was the period in which most of the federal stimulus was withdrawn, imposing a substantial drag. There was a large rise in oil prices, which was partially reversed in the third quarter (although prices have risen part of the way back to their prior peaks in recent weeks). And, the Japanese earth quake and tsunami disrupted some supply chains, most notably in the auto industry.
With these factors having passed, it was predictable that the economy would again grow at near its trend rate of 2.5 percent. This growth rate will do nothing to reduce the huge gap between the economy’s potential output and its actual output, leaving tens of millions of people unemployed or under-employed. Unfortunately, because baseless comments about a double-dip recession were given such prominence in the media, this sort of growth is viewed as being acceptable.
In an article about the impact of the euro crisis on the U.S. economy the NYT told readers:
“the American economy has shown signs of life recently, with talk of a double-dip fading and job growth picking up.”
People who were knowledgeable about the economy did not talk of a double-dip recession. There was a growth slowdown in the first half of the year due to one-time factors. This was the period in which most of the federal stimulus was withdrawn, imposing a substantial drag. There was a large rise in oil prices, which was partially reversed in the third quarter (although prices have risen part of the way back to their prior peaks in recent weeks). And, the Japanese earth quake and tsunami disrupted some supply chains, most notably in the auto industry.
With these factors having passed, it was predictable that the economy would again grow at near its trend rate of 2.5 percent. This growth rate will do nothing to reduce the huge gap between the economy’s potential output and its actual output, leaving tens of millions of people unemployed or under-employed. Unfortunately, because baseless comments about a double-dip recession were given such prominence in the media, this sort of growth is viewed as being acceptable.
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If the Washington Post managed the development of computers the way it reported on the administration’s efforts to promote green cars, I would be writing this piece on a typewriter. President Obama has been in office less than 3 years. It would be absolutely astounding if his administration’s efforts to promote cleaner cars had already produced marketable results.
The effort to get affordable electric cars will inevitably be a long process involving many cost-saving and efficiency-enhancing innovations. People who know technology understand this fact. People who don’t should not be writing on this issue for major news outlets.
It is also worth noting that in a period in which the economy has widespread unemployment, as is the case now, there is very little opportunity cost to this sort of spending. In other words, if the government did not spend this money we simply would have had more people unemployed. This may make deficit hawks happy, since it would mean a somewhat lower deficit/debt, but there is no obvious advantage to the country from this situation.
If the Washington Post managed the development of computers the way it reported on the administration’s efforts to promote green cars, I would be writing this piece on a typewriter. President Obama has been in office less than 3 years. It would be absolutely astounding if his administration’s efforts to promote cleaner cars had already produced marketable results.
The effort to get affordable electric cars will inevitably be a long process involving many cost-saving and efficiency-enhancing innovations. People who know technology understand this fact. People who don’t should not be writing on this issue for major news outlets.
It is also worth noting that in a period in which the economy has widespread unemployment, as is the case now, there is very little opportunity cost to this sort of spending. In other words, if the government did not spend this money we simply would have had more people unemployed. This may make deficit hawks happy, since it would mean a somewhat lower deficit/debt, but there is no obvious advantage to the country from this situation.
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The media regularly gives us stories about the impending demographic disaster in Japan because of its low birth rate and declining population. Today, in the context of an article about the clean-up from the accidents at its nuclear reactors last spring, the NYT told us Japan’s problems are even worse than we thought:
“The Soviet Union did not attempt such a cleanup after the Chernobyl accident of 1986, the only nuclear disaster larger than that at Fukushima Daiichi. The government instead relocated about 300,000 people, abandoning vast tracts of farmland.
Many Japanese officials believe that they do not have that luxury; the evacuation zone covers more than 3 percent of the landmass of this densely populated nation.”
So we now learn that Japan is not only suffering because it has a declining population, but also because it is a densely populated country. Can things get much worse?
In reality, the demographic story is silly. The alleged problem is a decline in the ratio of workers to retirees. (The correct measure is the ratio of workers to non-workers, the latter would include children.) In a healthy economy, the rise in productivity growth swamps the impact of even very negative demographic trends.
For example, going from 3 workers to retiree to 2 workers per retiree over a 20 year period (an extremely fast rate of decline) would imply that the share of workers’ wages going to support retirees would have to increase by 0.6 percentage points annually, assuming a 70 percent replacement rate for retirees. This is 40 percent of the 1.5 percent annual productivity growth in the years of the productivity slowdown (1973-1995) and 24 percent of the 2.5 percent annual productivity growth in the years since 1995.
This means that in a healthy economy workers can continue to enjoy substantial increases in living standards even during years in which the demographic trend leads to a sharp increase in dependency ratios. Insofar as this is associated with a declining population, there are many gains associated with less crowding and less pollution that will not show up in GDP statistics.
The media regularly gives us stories about the impending demographic disaster in Japan because of its low birth rate and declining population. Today, in the context of an article about the clean-up from the accidents at its nuclear reactors last spring, the NYT told us Japan’s problems are even worse than we thought:
“The Soviet Union did not attempt such a cleanup after the Chernobyl accident of 1986, the only nuclear disaster larger than that at Fukushima Daiichi. The government instead relocated about 300,000 people, abandoning vast tracts of farmland.
Many Japanese officials believe that they do not have that luxury; the evacuation zone covers more than 3 percent of the landmass of this densely populated nation.”
So we now learn that Japan is not only suffering because it has a declining population, but also because it is a densely populated country. Can things get much worse?
In reality, the demographic story is silly. The alleged problem is a decline in the ratio of workers to retirees. (The correct measure is the ratio of workers to non-workers, the latter would include children.) In a healthy economy, the rise in productivity growth swamps the impact of even very negative demographic trends.
For example, going from 3 workers to retiree to 2 workers per retiree over a 20 year period (an extremely fast rate of decline) would imply that the share of workers’ wages going to support retirees would have to increase by 0.6 percentage points annually, assuming a 70 percent replacement rate for retirees. This is 40 percent of the 1.5 percent annual productivity growth in the years of the productivity slowdown (1973-1995) and 24 percent of the 2.5 percent annual productivity growth in the years since 1995.
This means that in a healthy economy workers can continue to enjoy substantial increases in living standards even during years in which the demographic trend leads to a sharp increase in dependency ratios. Insofar as this is associated with a declining population, there are many gains associated with less crowding and less pollution that will not show up in GDP statistics.
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Bloomberg has done some outstanding reporting over the last few years on the Federal Reserve Board’s bailout of the financial sector. Much more money went through the Fed’s special lending facilities than went through the TARP program that was approved by Congress.
Bloomberg’s reporters have taken the lead both in pressing the Fed to release data on its bailout programs and also in publicizing the numbers when they were released. They even sued the Fed (successfully) to force it to release data on the beneficiaries of lending through the discount window. The Fed has resisted the release of information about its programs, claiming that it would make it more difficult for it carry through bailout programs and monetary policy.
Yesterday Fed chairman Ben Bernanke attacked Bloomberg claiming that its reporting was misleading. It looks like the Fed missed the mark on just about every issue.
Perhaps the most important issue is the Fed’s claim that it did not lend at a below-market rate to banks, thereby effectively giving them a subsidy. In fact, it is almost definitional that the rate did provide a subsidy.
No one forced the banks to borrow from the Fed. If they had better options, they would have borrowed elsewhere. Instead the Fed made large amounts of money available to banks at a time when liquidity carried an enormous premium. This meant that the banks could relend the government’s money to others and earn a substantial profit.
This lending may have been justified to stem the financial crisis, but in principle the government could have imposed conditions (e.g. real caps on executive pay, downsizing the too-big-to-fail banks, modifying mortgages) on the banks as the price of getting access to credit at below-market rates. Bernanke and Congress did not seek to impose such conditions.
Given Bernanke’s strenuous opposition to the release of data on the bailout programs it would be interesting to know if he now feels that it is more difficult for the Fed to conduct monetary policy.
Bloomberg has done some outstanding reporting over the last few years on the Federal Reserve Board’s bailout of the financial sector. Much more money went through the Fed’s special lending facilities than went through the TARP program that was approved by Congress.
Bloomberg’s reporters have taken the lead both in pressing the Fed to release data on its bailout programs and also in publicizing the numbers when they were released. They even sued the Fed (successfully) to force it to release data on the beneficiaries of lending through the discount window. The Fed has resisted the release of information about its programs, claiming that it would make it more difficult for it carry through bailout programs and monetary policy.
Yesterday Fed chairman Ben Bernanke attacked Bloomberg claiming that its reporting was misleading. It looks like the Fed missed the mark on just about every issue.
Perhaps the most important issue is the Fed’s claim that it did not lend at a below-market rate to banks, thereby effectively giving them a subsidy. In fact, it is almost definitional that the rate did provide a subsidy.
No one forced the banks to borrow from the Fed. If they had better options, they would have borrowed elsewhere. Instead the Fed made large amounts of money available to banks at a time when liquidity carried an enormous premium. This meant that the banks could relend the government’s money to others and earn a substantial profit.
This lending may have been justified to stem the financial crisis, but in principle the government could have imposed conditions (e.g. real caps on executive pay, downsizing the too-big-to-fail banks, modifying mortgages) on the banks as the price of getting access to credit at below-market rates. Bernanke and Congress did not seek to impose such conditions.
Given Bernanke’s strenuous opposition to the release of data on the bailout programs it would be interesting to know if he now feels that it is more difficult for the Fed to conduct monetary policy.
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Harold Meyerson confuses them today in an otherwise useful column on how democratic governments are being forced aside due to economic pressures. He approvingly quotes Wall Street investment banker Roger Altman:
“financial markets have become ‘a global supra-government. They oust entrenched regimes where normal political processes could not do so. They force austerity, banking bail-outs and other major policy changes. .?.?. [L]eaving aside unusable nuclear weapons, they have become the most powerful force on earth.'”
This is not quite right. The circumstances under which the financial markets brought about a run first on the debt of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and more recently on the debt of Italy and Spain were created by the policies pursued by the European Central Bank (ECB) and Mario Draghi and his predecessor Jean Claude Trichet.
The ECB has run a policy that is focused on containing inflation and forcing governments to reduce their deficits. It could have instead run a policy that placed its primary emphasis on promoting growth. It also could have played the role of lender of last resort. It was a quite deliberate policy decision by the ECB to impose a fiscal straightjacket on the heavily indebted countries of Europe. (Its policies have made this debt burden much worse.)
It is understandable that Draghi and the ECB would like to pretend that the problems facing Greece, Italy and other countries in the euro zone are simply the result of the market imposing its discipline. However, this is not true. They are responsible for the difficulties facing these countries.
Harold Meyerson confuses them today in an otherwise useful column on how democratic governments are being forced aside due to economic pressures. He approvingly quotes Wall Street investment banker Roger Altman:
“financial markets have become ‘a global supra-government. They oust entrenched regimes where normal political processes could not do so. They force austerity, banking bail-outs and other major policy changes. .?.?. [L]eaving aside unusable nuclear weapons, they have become the most powerful force on earth.'”
This is not quite right. The circumstances under which the financial markets brought about a run first on the debt of Greece, Ireland and Portugal, and more recently on the debt of Italy and Spain were created by the policies pursued by the European Central Bank (ECB) and Mario Draghi and his predecessor Jean Claude Trichet.
The ECB has run a policy that is focused on containing inflation and forcing governments to reduce their deficits. It could have instead run a policy that placed its primary emphasis on promoting growth. It also could have played the role of lender of last resort. It was a quite deliberate policy decision by the ECB to impose a fiscal straightjacket on the heavily indebted countries of Europe. (Its policies have made this debt burden much worse.)
It is understandable that Draghi and the ECB would like to pretend that the problems facing Greece, Italy and other countries in the euro zone are simply the result of the market imposing its discipline. However, this is not true. They are responsible for the difficulties facing these countries.
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Some people try to teach by providing step by step instructions. This can be very tedious. David Brooks instead teaches by example. In his column today, David Brooks commits two of the great sins that would not appear in any serious discussion of regulation.
First he discusses the cost of the regulations put in place by different presidents:
“George W. Bush issued regulations over eight years that cost about $60 billion. During its first two years, the Obama regulations cost between $8 billion and $16.5 billion, according to estimates by the administration itself, and $40 billion, according to data collected, more broadly, by the Heritage Foundation.”
So regulation under the last president Bush cost $60 billion. Is this $60 billion a year (@0.4 percent of GDP)? Is it the accumulated cost over ten years (@0.04 percent of GDP)? Or, is it over a one-time cost of $60 billion? David Brooks doesn’t tell us. The differences are of course enormous, but we have not a clue based on the information given in the article.
The second major sin is that we have no idea how Brooks is measuring costs. Suppose that my neighbor has the disturbing habit of dumping his sewage on my lawn. If this is a common problem, then I and others similarly afflicted may unite to put a socialist in the White House who will prohibit people from dumping sewage on their neighbors’ lawn.
Most regulation does in fact have this character. It prohibits businesses from doing harm to the life and property of others. The question is, does Brooks’ measure of the cost of regulation simply count the cost to my neighbor of dealing with his own sewage, or is it supposed to be some net measure that subtracts the savings that accrue to me and other current recipients of our neighbors’ sewage?
Brooks doesn’t tell us, but since analyses of most regulations show the benefits far exceed the cost (in the case of the Clean Air Act, the net benefits were estimated as $2 trillion over the next few decades), it is likely that Brooks is simply counting the cost to my neighbor of cleaning up his own sewage. It’s not clear what this tells us exactly about the burden of regulation, but hey, this is David Brooks, what did you expect?
Some people try to teach by providing step by step instructions. This can be very tedious. David Brooks instead teaches by example. In his column today, David Brooks commits two of the great sins that would not appear in any serious discussion of regulation.
First he discusses the cost of the regulations put in place by different presidents:
“George W. Bush issued regulations over eight years that cost about $60 billion. During its first two years, the Obama regulations cost between $8 billion and $16.5 billion, according to estimates by the administration itself, and $40 billion, according to data collected, more broadly, by the Heritage Foundation.”
So regulation under the last president Bush cost $60 billion. Is this $60 billion a year (@0.4 percent of GDP)? Is it the accumulated cost over ten years (@0.04 percent of GDP)? Or, is it over a one-time cost of $60 billion? David Brooks doesn’t tell us. The differences are of course enormous, but we have not a clue based on the information given in the article.
The second major sin is that we have no idea how Brooks is measuring costs. Suppose that my neighbor has the disturbing habit of dumping his sewage on my lawn. If this is a common problem, then I and others similarly afflicted may unite to put a socialist in the White House who will prohibit people from dumping sewage on their neighbors’ lawn.
Most regulation does in fact have this character. It prohibits businesses from doing harm to the life and property of others. The question is, does Brooks’ measure of the cost of regulation simply count the cost to my neighbor of dealing with his own sewage, or is it supposed to be some net measure that subtracts the savings that accrue to me and other current recipients of our neighbors’ sewage?
Brooks doesn’t tell us, but since analyses of most regulations show the benefits far exceed the cost (in the case of the Clean Air Act, the net benefits were estimated as $2 trillion over the next few decades), it is likely that Brooks is simply counting the cost to my neighbor of cleaning up his own sewage. It’s not clear what this tells us exactly about the burden of regulation, but hey, this is David Brooks, what did you expect?
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The NYT had a good piece on Ireland’s effort to get back on a solid growth path. At one point it refers to a 5.4 percent rise in exports as an encouraging sign:
“driven by gains from Pfizer, Intel, SAP and other multinational companies that were drawn to Ireland in the 1990s and 2000s by its low taxes, well-educated English-speaking work force and access to the European market.”
Actually, this picture is less clear. Many of the exports associated with these companies are likely to be associated with increased imports as well. For example, if Intel is exporting more microprocessors assembled in Ireland it is also importing more components. The net gain to Ireland’s economy might be very small since most of the value added may take place elsewhere.
The NYT had a good piece on Ireland’s effort to get back on a solid growth path. At one point it refers to a 5.4 percent rise in exports as an encouraging sign:
“driven by gains from Pfizer, Intel, SAP and other multinational companies that were drawn to Ireland in the 1990s and 2000s by its low taxes, well-educated English-speaking work force and access to the European market.”
Actually, this picture is less clear. Many of the exports associated with these companies are likely to be associated with increased imports as well. For example, if Intel is exporting more microprocessors assembled in Ireland it is also importing more components. The net gain to Ireland’s economy might be very small since most of the value added may take place elsewhere.
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The boys and girls at Fox on 15th Street are really getting excited over their hopes that the European welfare state might be dismantled. The third paragraph of the lead front page article told readers:
“If adopted by other nations in the union, the deal would mean drastic cuts in European budgets. It would also spell the end of three decades of overspending that helped finance a cozy social protection system envied by much of the world.”
Of course the most generous welfare states who have the most “cozy” social protection systems are not facing fiscal crises. These are countries like Sweden and Denmark and even Germany, all of whom have relatively solid finances. Paul Krugman put up a nice graph on his blog yesterday showing the non-relationship between the share of government spending in GDP and the current interest rates paid by government.
Also, as people familiar with current events know, this crisis did not stem from “three decades of overspending,” it came about because of a collapse of housing bubbles in the United States and across Europe. This is the opposite of a problem of an excessive welfare state. It was a problem of a private financial sector gone wild making the reckless loans that fueled the bubble. Apparently the Post has not heard about this.
The boys and girls at Fox on 15th Street are really getting excited over their hopes that the European welfare state might be dismantled. The third paragraph of the lead front page article told readers:
“If adopted by other nations in the union, the deal would mean drastic cuts in European budgets. It would also spell the end of three decades of overspending that helped finance a cozy social protection system envied by much of the world.”
Of course the most generous welfare states who have the most “cozy” social protection systems are not facing fiscal crises. These are countries like Sweden and Denmark and even Germany, all of whom have relatively solid finances. Paul Krugman put up a nice graph on his blog yesterday showing the non-relationship between the share of government spending in GDP and the current interest rates paid by government.
Also, as people familiar with current events know, this crisis did not stem from “three decades of overspending,” it came about because of a collapse of housing bubbles in the United States and across Europe. This is the opposite of a problem of an excessive welfare state. It was a problem of a private financial sector gone wild making the reckless loans that fueled the bubble. Apparently the Post has not heard about this.
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NYT columnist Roger Cohen told readers that ideas like a:
“tax on global financial transactions, have been around for years but they’re almost impossible to apply.”
He wouldn’t say this if he was familiar with the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has been taxing trades of stock for centuries. It raises between 0.2-0.3 percent annually ($30-$40 billion in the United States). There are many other financial transactions taxes in place in other financial markets.
It is not clear what makes Mr. Cohen think that a tax that raises tens of billions of dollars each year is “almost impossible to apply.”
NYT columnist Roger Cohen told readers that ideas like a:
“tax on global financial transactions, have been around for years but they’re almost impossible to apply.”
He wouldn’t say this if he was familiar with the United Kingdom. The United Kingdom has been taxing trades of stock for centuries. It raises between 0.2-0.3 percent annually ($30-$40 billion in the United States). There are many other financial transactions taxes in place in other financial markets.
It is not clear what makes Mr. Cohen think that a tax that raises tens of billions of dollars each year is “almost impossible to apply.”
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