EconomicsJunkie » General Economics

Thoughts on Canadian Subprime, Bp Oil Spill & the Death of Statism

Nima — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:32:24 +0000

Thoughts on Society, Truth, Statism, and More
As G20 Prepare to Convene in Toronto, Canadian Government Boasts Over “Having Avoided Banking Crisis” – The Perfect Kickoff to the Canadian Meltdown
US Government Happily Continues Subprime Lending

Mish on Tech Ticker on Stimulus & Markets

Nima — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:39:31 +0000

There’s no hotter debate right now than stimulus vs. austerity, as folks like Paul Krugman and even Barack Obama call for more spending to fix the economy.

Michael “MISH” Shedlock is not having any of it, arguing that the financial pump has failed, and that the only way to get the economy back on track is to pursue a policy of less government, and less spending, with a special focus on reforming pensions, public sector unions, and other institutions that drain the government of its resources.

As evidence: Japan. The country has now seen multiple decades of recession despite massive pumping on both the fiscal and the monetary side.

But at least Japan hasn’t had a debt crisis yet, right? The key word there, says Mish is “YET.” The fiscal situation in Japan is getting more and more tenuous, and it’s no sure thing that the market will retain its confidence in the Japanese government’s ability to finance its debt. And of course the same thing could happen here.

But for now in the US the big risk is deflation, which you can see in housing and other economic categories. Spending won’t solve this problem; actual economic adjustment is what’s needed to start growing again.

The bulls have pushed aside the bears on Wall Street — for now. Signs of optimism following three consecutive winning days in the stock market have replaced the doom and gloom mood so prevalent in the two prior weeks.

Having already heard the bullish case from Doug Kass and James Paulsen earlier this week, Tech Ticker decided to invite Mike “Mish” Shedlock, author of Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis, back on the show to hear the other side of the argument.

Is he bearish? You bet!

“The optimism out there is rather insane,” he says. There’s only a 15-20% chance of the market rallying, Mish tells guest host and Business Insider deputy editor Joseph Weisenthal. “It’s more likely we go down there and test the March lows, and there’s a decent chance actually that we break those lows,” he says.

Mish says “it is nuts to be net long” stocks right now in the face of all these headwinds:

– Slowdown in Europe as austerity measures take hold.

– Slowdown in U.S. as stimulus fades, housing remains weak, state and local governments cutback

– China looks to cool its economy in the face of growing housing bubble

Until Mish sees signs of sustainable job growth, he’ll be firm in his bearish stance. “Without a driver for jobs I don’t know how someone could be bullish on the stock market.”

If not stocks, then what?

Mish is sticking with what’s worked this year: Treasuries and gold. Treasury yields are still near record lows, but he think with the macroeconomy the way it is, it’s very possible, “the bull market in Treasuries is not over.” As for gold, he’d buy on the dips.

On Thursday, a slew of retailers posted monthly same-store sales. They were described best as a “mixed bag.” There was no obvious trend in terms of up or down, even within specific categories of retailers. But bulls on the economy should be disappointed.

For one thing, notes Mike “MISH” Shedlock author of Mish’s Global Economic Trend Analysis, the same-store sales gainers benefited by the general reduction in store locations. Essentially, survivorship bias is skewing the numbers. If somehow you could take into account all the locations that had been shuttered, you’d see that things were much worse.

And there’s evidence for this, notes Mish. State sales tax collections remain depressed, with no indication of a rebound. That, more than the corporate numbers, is the key thing to pay attention to.

And with states thirsting for cash, this is a crucial problem that will play out in terms of further budget cuts, and a further drag on the economy.

Ultimately it’s all about jobs. Without a jobs recovery, there will be no consumer recovery, and without a consumer recovery, there’s little reason to be excited about the market or the economy.

Hayek’s Road to Serfdom Now #1 on Amazon

Nima — Thu, 10 Jun 2010 02:04:51 +0000

I myself have not read this particular book of his, but it’s always great to see people join us on the path to understanding real economics! I have read many books written by Hayek’s most influential teacher Mises and books by other fellow Mises disciples, such as Rothbard, so I feel safe recommending this one.

This is Amazon’s review:

An unimpeachable classic work in political philosophy, intellectual and cultural history, and economics, The Road to Serfdom has inspired and infuriated politicians, scholars, and general readers for half a century. Originally published in 1944—when Eleanor Roosevelt supported the efforts of Stalin, and Albert Einstein subscribed lock, stock, and barrel to the socialist program—The Road to Serfdom was seen as heretical for its passionate warning against the dangers of state control over the means of production. For F. A. Hayek, the collectivist idea of empowering government with increasing economic control would lead not to a utopia but to the horrors of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy.

First published by the University of Chicago Press on September 18, 1944, The Road to Serfdom garnered immediate, widespread attention. The first printing of 2,000 copies was exhausted instantly, and within six months more than 30,000 books were sold. In April 1945, Reader’s Digest published a condensed version of the book, and soon thereafter the Book-of-the-Month Club distributed this edition to more than 600,000 readers. A perennial best seller, the book has sold 400,000 copies in the United States alone and has been translated into more than twenty languages, along the way becoming one of the most important and influential books of the century.

With this new edition, The Road to Serfdom takes its place in the series The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek. The volume includes a foreword by series editor and leading Hayek scholar Bruce Caldwell explaining the book’s origins and publishing history and assessing common misinterpretations of Hayek’s thought. Caldwell has also standardized and corrected Hayek’s references and added helpful new explanatory notes. Supplemented with an appendix of related materials ranging from prepublication reports on the initial manuscript to forewords to earlier editions by John Chamberlain, Milton Friedman, and Hayek himself, this new edition of The Road to Serfdom will be the definitive version of Friedrich Hayek’s enduring masterwork.

Paul Krugman, You Need Help!

Nima — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:37:32 +0000

Here is a nice takedown of Chief Keynesian Clown Paul K. written by Mish today:

Krugman’s Magic Mirror

Clearly one of us is wrong. But whom? Perhaps this image can help.

Throwing money at problems never works in the long run.

Japan tried that and now has debt to GDP of 200%. Because of its aging demographics, Japan is in serious trouble as soon as interest rates rise. Japan will not be able to finance its monstrous debt nor will it be able to grow its way out of the problem. Such is the nature of compound interest and unsustainable levels of debt.

Likewise, the US tried to spend its way out of the 2000-2001 recession.

Greenspan’s policies seemed to work, but it was nothing but an illusion. The real economy was taking a nosedive even as financial assets soared. It was a nice party, as all Keynesian parties are, but in the final analysis all Greenspan and Bernanke accomplished was to dig the deepest debt hole mankind has ever seen. The housing and debt implosion of 2007-2008 was the direct result.

Now Paul Krugman thinks it’s too early to shut off stimulus.

Hello Paul!

It will always be too early for you. There is no recovery nor will there ever be a recovery until there is genuine demand for goods and services at prices set by the free market not the government.

When the problem is debt, going deeper in debt cannot possibly be the solution.

Yes, Paul, we lost a decade. Yes, Paul, we are going to lose another, not because we failed to follow your recommendations, but precisely because we did!

We had a chance to write off the debt and to let the insolvent banks go under. Instead we wasted over a trillion dollars bailing out banks that still are not lending (and wisely will not lend) because we never purged the debts that needed to be purged nor did we reduce rampant overcapacity.

We could have and should have forced the bondholders of Citigroup and Fannie Mae to take a hit. Instead, taxpayers who cannot possibly afford it, bailed out wealthy bondholders.

In addition, we tried all sorts of Keynesian nonsense like cash-for-clunkers and an$8,000 tax credits for houses. As soon as the tax credit expired housing went in the gutter. It is about to do so for the second time.

Bernanke will not know what hit him even though it is point blank foolish to stimulate housing when there is an ocean of housing oversupply already.

By the way, how many roads can you pave? We paved roads in our area that did not even need to be paved. Now fooking what?

This is exactly the mistake Japan made. Yet you want to repeat it with more absurd makeshift work.

The stimulus money is nearly out and you want more. You will always want more for the simple reason there is no real demand for goods and services, only an illusion of a recovery that comes from passing out “free money”.

When you look in a mirror you see the illusion, what you should see is a Keynesian warthog. Substitute the words “Keynesian Economics” for “Real Economy” on that hag, and the picture is perfect.

As Europe found out, the will and the means to pass out “free money” is 100% guaranteed to end before a lasting recovery can take hold.

That dear Paul, whether you like it or not, is the mechanics of peak debt, compound interest, global wage arbitrage, and something you desperately need to learn: Austrian economics.

Recommended Reading List

Paul, you need help. I suggest a few books on my recommended reading list.

Economics in One Lesson: The Shortest and Surest Way to Understand Basic Economics by Henry Hazlit

Economics for Real People by Gene Callahan

What Has Government Done to Our Money? and The Case for a 100 Percent Gold Dollar by Murray N. Rothbard

I couldn’t agree more, those are excellent reads indeed.

Paul, you need help!

Higher Education Bubble Poised to Burst

Nima — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 18:45:04 +0000

Glenn Reynolds at The Washington Examiner writes Higher education’s bubble is about to burst:

It’s a story of an industry that may sound familiar.

The buyers think what they’re buying will appreciate in value, making them rich in the future. The product grows more and more elaborate, and more and more expensive, but the expense is offset by cheap credit provided by sellers eager to encourage buyers to buy.

Buyers see that everyone else is taking on mounds of debt, and so are more comfortable when they do so themselves; besides, for a generation, the value of what they’re buying has gone up steadily. What could go wrong? Everything continues smoothly until, at some point, it doesn’t.

Yes, this sounds like the housing bubble, but I’m afraid it’s also sounding a lot like a still-inflating higher education bubble. And despite (or because of) the fact that my day job involves higher education, I think it’s better for us to face up to what’s going on before the bubble bursts messily.

College has gotten a lot more expensive. A recent Money magazine report notes: “After adjusting for financial aid, the amount families pay for college has skyrocketed 439 percent since 1982. … Normal supply and demand can’t begin to explain cost increases of this magnitude.”

Consumers would balk, except for two things.

First — as with the housing bubble — cheap and readily available credit has let people borrow to finance education. They’re willing to do so because of (1) consumer ignorance, as students (and, often, their parents) don’t fully grasp just how harsh the impact of student loan payments will be after graduation; and (2) a belief that, whatever the cost, a college education is a necessary ticket to future prosperity.

Bubbles burst when there are no longer enough excessively optimistic and ignorant folks to fuel them. And there are signs that this is beginning to happen already.

A New York Times profile last week described Courtney Munna, a 26-year-old graduate of New York University with nearly $100,000 in student loan debt — debt that her degree in Religious and Women’s Studies did not equip her to repay. Payments on the debt are about $700 per month, equivalent to a respectable house payment, and a major bite on her monthly income of $2,300 as a photographer’s assistant earning an hourly wage.

And, unlike a bad mortgage on an underwater house, Munna can’t simply walk away from her student loans, which cannot be expunged in a bankruptcy. She’s stuck in a financial trap.

Some might say that she deserves it — who borrows $100,000 to finance a degree in women’s and religious studies that won’t make you any money? She should have wised up, and others should learn from her mistake, instead of learning too late, as she did: “I don’t want to spend the rest of my life slaving away to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back.”

But bubbles burst when people catch on, and there’s some evidence that people are beginning to catch on. Student loan demand, according to a recent report in the Washington Post, is going soft, and students are expressing a willingness to go to a cheaper school rather than run up debt. Things haven’t collapsed yet, but they’re looking shakier — kind of like the housing market looked in 2007.

So what happens if the bubble collapses? Will it be a tragedy, with millions of Americans losing their path to higher-paying jobs?

Maybe not. College is often described as a path to prosperity, but is it? A college education can help people make more money in three different ways.

First, it may actually make them more economically productive by teaching them skills valued in the workplace: Computer programming, nursing or engineering, say. (Religious and women’s studies, not so much.)

Second, it may provide a credential that employers want, not because it represents actual skills, but because it’s a weeding tool that doesn’t produce civil-rights suits as, say, IQ tests might. A four-year college degree, even if its holder acquired no actual skills, at least indicates some ability to show up on time and perform as instructed.

And, third, a college degree — at least an elite one — may hook its holder up with a useful social network that can provide jobs and opportunities in the future. (This is more true if it’s a degree from Yale than if it’s one from Eastern Kentucky, but it’s true everywhere to some degree).

While an individual might rationally pursue all three of these, only the first one — actual added skills — produces a net benefit for society. The other two are just distributional — about who gets the goodies, not about making more of them.

Yet today’s college education system seems to be in the business of selling parts two and three to a much greater degree than part one, along with selling the even-harder-to-quantify “college experience,” which as often as not boils down to four (or more) years of partying.

Post-bubble, perhaps students — and employers, not to mention parents and lenders — will focus instead on education that fosters economic value. And that is likely to press colleges to focus more on providing useful majors. (That doesn’t necessarily rule out traditional liberal-arts majors, so long as they are rigorous and require a real general education, rather than trendy and easy subjects, but the key word here is “rigorous.”)

My question is whether traditional academic institutions will be able to keep up with the times, or whether — as Anya Kamenetz suggests in her new book, “DIY U” — the real pioneering will be in online education and the work of “edupunks” who are more interested in finding new ways of teaching and learning than in protecting existing interests.

I’m betting on the latter. Industries seldom reform themselves, and real competition usually comes from the outside. Keep your eyes open — and, if you’re planning on applying to college, watch out for those student loans.

I agree. I think there will be a big trend towards e-learning, 100% online universities, self-managed learning etc.

Next to housing and consumer credit, higher education has been yet another government subsidized and outright managed scheme to turn people into debt slaves for life. And still, people apply to colleges and go in debt like nothing ever happened.

You may also be interested in the crushing load of Medical Students’ Debt and Other Symptoms of the Government’s Meddling With Health Care.

Las Vegas Sitting on Huge Housing Inventory; 70% of NV Mortgages Underwater; Massive Wave of Distressed Sales Coming

Nima — Sun, 16 May 2010 11:21:01 +0000

The New York Times notes Building Is Booming in a City of Empty Houses:

In a plastic tent under a glorious desert sky, Richard Lee preached the gospel of the second chance.

The chance to make money on the next housing boom “is like it’s never been,” Mr. Lee, a real estate promoter, assured a crowd of agents, investors and bankers. “We’re going to come back like you’ve never seen us before.”

Home prices in Las Vegas are down by 60 percent from 2006 in one of the steepest descents in modern times. There are 9,517 spanking new houses sitting empty. An additional 5,600 homes were repossessed by lenders in the first three months of this year and could soon be for sale.

Yet builders here are putting up 1,100 homes, and they are frantically buying lots for even more.

Las Vegas is trying to recover by building what it does not need. It is an unlikely pattern being repeated in many of the areas where the housing crash was most severe.

For now, builders are still able to find demand due to long drawn out short sale processes which are frustrating buyers, according to Calculated Risk.

CR also has a chart that shows the percentage of negative equity homes by state:

While thousands of homes are empty and ghost towns are developing, 70% of homeowners are under water, builders continue to pile on, and agents again try to lure in people for the “next housing boom”. This next housing boom is not going to happen. Not in this decade, and probably not even in our lifetime.

As a result of this insanity, there will be great opportunities to strike ridiculous deals in Sin City at some point. Now is not that time.

This has all to do with what I explained recently:

True Consumption as Percentage of GDP

The true consumption ratio will need to come down significantly before a true alignment of resources in the production structure toward a recovery will be possible.

A close up to the years 2000 through now:

Government stimulus and bailout programs since the beginning of 2008 have fundamentally accomplished one thing: The ratio of the production of consumer goods versus factors of production has been bumped up for a little while.

Road to Recovery?

Contrary what the government says, they have not lead us onto a “path to recovery”. In fact, they have done the exact opposite! They have used all means at their disposal and all the force and dedication in the world to pull people in precisely the opposite direction.

This is the outcome of all the corporate bailouts, the cash for clunkers program, the 10,000 tax credit for homebuyers and what have you. Instead of abstaining from producing overproduced consumer goods and re-aligning toward capital goods, businesses have thus continued to produce excess trash and continued to engage in overly risky activities.

The payback for supporting this nonsense will be a double dip recession, Uncle Sam sends his regards.

Marijuana Prices are Crashing – Panic Among California Growers

Nima — Sat, 15 May 2010 23:43:58 +0000

Here’s the NPR story:

Here’s the article:

For decades, illegal marijuana cultivation has been an economic lifeblood for three counties in northern California known as the Emerald Triangle.

The war on drugs and frequent raids by federal drug agents have helped support the local economy — keeping prices for street sales of pot high and keeping profits rich.

But high times are changing. Legal pot, under the guise of the California’s medical marijuana laws, has spurred a rush of new competition. As a result, the wholesale price of pot grown in these areas is plunging.

Demand Not Meeting Supply

In 1983, the Reagan administration launched a massive air and ground campaign to eradicate pot and lock up growers in northern California. Charley Custer, a writer and community activist, had just arrived to Humboldt County from Chicago. With the Reagan crackdown, Custer recalls, wholesale prices shot up — to as high as $5,000 a pound. That sudden and ironic windfall for those growers willing to risk prison time transformed the community.

“A lot of people were living on welfare and peanut butter and banana sandwiches for a long time before pot made it possible to be part of the middle class,” Custer says.

Nearly 30 years later, Custer says that boom may be over.

“Outdoor growers are having a hard time unloading their fall harvest,” Custer says. “And this is six months later and when some people do move it, they don’t get nearly the price they were hoping for.”

That goes for both legal growers who cultivate limited quantities of pot under the medical marijuana laws and illegal operators who often grow larger amounts.

Prices are now much less than $2,000 a pound, according to interviews with more than a dozen growers and dealers. Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman says some growers can’t get rid of their processed pot at any price.

“We arrested a man who had … 800 pounds of processed,” Allman says. “Eight hundred pounds of processed. And we asked him: ‘What are you going to do with 800 pounds of processed?’ And he said, ‘I don’t know.’”

‘Only The Good Ones Make It’

As recently as last December, things were still pretty upbeat. At Area 101, an events and healing center near Laytonville, local growers gathered to celebrate the Emerald Cup, an annual competition for the season’s best pot buds. But the event’s host, Tim Blake, says the mood has darkened since then.

“There’s a tremendous amount of concern, borderlining on fear,” says the former underground grower who now cultivates medical marijuana.

He says the drop in pot prices is in part the result of more growers and a more tolerant legal landscape. But he says another factor is quality. Indoor-grown marijuana is increasingly favored by dispensaries and consumers for its looks, consistence and potency. It costs more to produce than pot grown under the sun, but commands as much as double the price. That’s one reason retail prices haven’t hit the skids.

“What’s happening is the people that don’t have quality product aren’t selling it,” Blake says. “So they’re the ones that are creating this panic. So it really comes back down to that, just like in every other agricultural industry. When you get too many vineyards and too many people growing vines out there, then only the good ones make it.”

Matt Cohen is one of those growers who are making it. On an organic farm near Ukiah, Cohen raises chickens, grows vegetables and cultivates high-grade medical pot. He has avoided the downturn by distributing marijuana directly to patients. But other growers who rely on middlemen and dealers for legal and illegal sales are in financial trouble.

“And I know people, and they’re living from credit card to credit card,” Cohen says. “They’re not even making money. It’s just a lifestyle that they’re in and the alternative is to go do what?”

Instability And Anxiety

In recent weeks the upheaval has spurred a series of unprecedented public forums about where things are headed for the marijuana industry, especially if Californians vote to legalize pot this fall.

“The displacement of persons deriving supplemental income through clipping, gardening and distribution of marijuana dwarfs the number of growers who will lose their income entirely,” says local activist Anna Hamilton, who organized a gathering in Garberville. She says the broader community is already feeling the ripple effects of falling pot prices.

“There are business foreclosures, storefronts closing. There’s a lot of instability and anxiety,” she says.

Still, amid the turmoil, Custer says some locals haven’t lost their sense of humor. He recalls a recent musical revue where three performers in miniskirts, sunglasses and spiky heels mocked the plight of local pot growers all to the beat of the ’60s hit “My Boyfriend’s Back.”

“‘My dealer’s back and I’m gonna get ready/Hey now, hey now, my dealer’s back,’” Custer sings. “It was a song of hope in this hopeless situation. ‘It’ll happen to you. Your dealer will come back.’”

Or maybe not. California’s pot economy is transforming, and it’s starting to resemble a real commodities market where only big players can compete. It’s a shift that could leave some growers in the dust.

What’s interesting about this story is this: Prices are crashing as a a result of the potential legalization of marijuana in the Golden State. This is hurting a lot of sub-par quality sellers.

This goes to show us once again: The war on drugs and government meddling in the business helps nobody more than the guys who produce and sell drugs.

Once the state withdraws, the market becomes open, more competitive, subject to more scrutiny, less subject to gray areas, and thus prices come down. As a result, the return on investment in getting people hooked on drugs via free samples declines, so that fewer and fewer people will fall into the trap of drug addiction and drug abuse.

Hope You Enjoyed the Housing Recovery … Because It’s History

Nima — Mon, 10 May 2010 20:49:13 +0000

Some considerations from Richard Suttmeier:

Since the recovery in house prices began last summer, homeowners and real-estate agents have embraced what many believe is a return to normalcy (forever rising prices).

In Wall Street-fueled markets like New York City, properties are once again getting multiple bids, and optimists are chattering about a quick return to old highs. If the trend continues, friends, neighbors, and real-estate agents will no doubt soon start repeating the adage that helped inflate the housing bubble in the first place: Real-estate is always a great investment.

But the trend won’t continue, says Richard Suttmeier, strategist at ValuEngine.com.

The temporary increase in prices has been driven by government efforts to prop up the housing market, Suttmeier says, and those measures have come to an end. A new wave of foreclosures is hitting the market. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have become black holes into which taxpayers must shovel endless billions just to keep the mortgage engine running. Most importantly, as measured by the Case-Shiller index, housing prices are still way too high.

In most major house-price indexes, prices have already begun to roll over and head back down. Suttmeier thinks this trend will continue. In fact, he thinks prices could fall another 25% nationwide.

For a good overview of the trends that concern Suttmeier, see fund manager Whitney Tilson’s latest presentation on the housing market.

New Wave of Foreclosures

From Zillow:

Zillow recently released its first quarter Real Estate Market Reports for the nation and 135 metropolitan areas. The reports show that home values continued to decline nationwide in the first quarter, amid encouraging signs in California. However, growing negative equity and record foreclosures will likely delay a broader recovery.
The full national report, in its new, interactive format, is available at www.zillow.com/local-info or by emailing press@zillow.com. Additionally, in most areas data is available at the state, metro, county, city, ZIP and neighborhood level.
Topline National Results:

U.S. home values fell 3.8 percent year-over-year, and declined 1 percent quarter-over-quarter, marking the 13th consecutive quarter of year-over-year declines. Home values declined year-over-year in 106 of the 135 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) tracked by Zillow.

Home values in several large California markets have stabilized significantly, and show tentative signs of reaching a bottom.

Negative equity remains high with 23.3 percent of all single family homes with mortgages underwater, up from 21.4 percent in fourth quarter.

Foreclosures reached a new peak in March, with more than one out of every thousand homes (0.11 percent) being foreclosed.

The $8,000 first time homebuyer tax credit program has now run out, and so has the $6,500 repeat homebuyer program. Everyone knew that once those run out home prices would resume their natural and required path of price deflation, and foreclosures and underwater homeowners would be back in the news.

“Solutions” to Deficits – The National Sales Tax

Nima — Sun, 02 May 2010 05:08:16 +0000

In my post What’s the Problem With Government Budget Deficits? I recently wrote:

“Solutions” to Deficits

As I explained, the ultimate damage caused by public budget deficits occurs at that point in time when taxpayers are forced to restrict their consumption and unjustly bear the cost of malinvestments from the past.

Ironically, when you look at the political stage, all you will hear in regards to “solutions” to deficits in the end, will be tax hikes. These are not solutions. They are the ultimate manifestation of the very problem at hand. They are, in fact, the precise opposite of a solution. Keep this in mind whenever you hear politicians talk about deficit solutions.

This guy over at The Atlantic is promptly jumping in to pose as a hapless example of what I described:

Here’s why we need [a national sales tax]: If you think the deficit looks bad now, wait a few years. Rising health care costs for retired baby boomers will push U.S. debt levels past their World War II-levels. But whereas WWII ended and we owed that debt to ourselves, our entitlement system is woven into American life and we owe half the resulting debt to foreign countries. Approaching this challenge will require some combination of robust growth, spending cuts, entitlement reform and more tax revenue.

Thanks, oh guy who doesn’t get it :)

Are Unfunded Liabilities Part of the Public Debt?

Nima — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 02:43:56 +0000

Mish recently wrote this:

The Chicago Tribune had an excellent set of charts this weekend in A Tsunami of Red Ink regarding US government debt and who owns it, and also a comparison of US debt to the national debt of other countries.

Debt as a Percentage of GDP

Comparison of US Debt to Other Countries

Click on the link at the top to see foreign holders of US debt country by country. The top three US debt holders are China, Japan, and the UK.

Some will not believe those figures on debt to GDP comparisons. I don’t either. For starters the numbers are from 2009.

The footnote also says, if intragovernmental debt is included the figure is 83%. That number is approximately correct in my opinion (as of 2009).

Some will want to count unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities out to 2050 or whatever. This is simply wrong. That would be like counting a car you intend to buy 3 years from now as part of your debt now.

Many things can happen between now and then.

You may buy a smaller car.

You may not buy the car at all, opting for public transportation.

When the time arrives, you may postpone buying a car for a couple more years.

You may save enough to pay for the car in cash so that you incur no debt.

Likewise, the plans for Social Security and Medicare might change. Costs may go up, or down. The plans may be scaled back by the next generation of US citizens who think our generation was the most greedy in history.

The first part of the article is informing and interesting, the second part is rather questionable. In particular this statement makes very little sense:

Some will want to count unfunded Social Security and Medicare liabilities out to 2050 or whatever. This is simply wrong. That would be like counting a car you intend to buy 3 years from now as part of your debt now.

Not so much! A car I intend to buy 3 years from now is not a commitment made by anybody towards me or from me towards anybody. It does not have any contractual character. It contains no financial obligations whatsoever.

As I explained before:

Then there are unfunded social security and medicare obligations of about $43 trillion according to the Treasury’s own Financial Report for 2008:

The SOSI provides additional perspective on the Government’s long term estimated exposures and costs. However, it should be noted that the Government’s financial statements do not reflect future costs implied by any current policy, such as national defense, the global war on terrorism, and disaster relief and recovery. Table 3 shows the Government’s estimated present value of future social insurance expenditures, net of dedicated future revenues for the programs reported in the Statement of Social Insurance (SOSI), projected to be $43 trillion as of January 1, 2008 for the ‘Open Group’6. While these expenditures are currently not considered Government liabilities, they do have the potential to become liabilities in the future, based on the continuation of the social insurance programs’ provisions contained in current law.

A liability, or debt, is simply “the obligation of one person or group to provide future goods to another person or group.” Thus, for the discerning economist, it is rather irrelevant if the government “considers” or “officially calls” them liabilities. As far as their impact on human action is concerned, and thus all that economics cares about, they are debts. This brings the total US debt up to around $93 trillion (with total public debt at around $54 trillion).

All the arguments Mish advanced against including unfunded liabilities could just as well be advanced against including any public debt outstanding. The government doesn’t have to honor the public debt. It could also decide to “take public transportation” in that sense and “not buy a car” by not paying off its creditors.

It may be accurate to say that a partial default on unfunded Medicare and Social Security liabilities will be a lot less eye catching and PR laden than one on the official public debt floating around. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t have major effects on people’s behavior in society. It also doesn’t change its fundamental praxeological character. One need only look at the current madness unraveling in the field of public sector unions and public pensions to appreciate this fact. (This is one more reason why I am surprised that someone like Mish brushes over the phenomenon of unfunded federal government obligations so cavalierly and suggest that they not be considered public debt.)

In fact, I believe that the first wave of public debt defaults will occur silently in the realm of those unfunded, off-balance-sheet liabilities, just as it has recently been happening in Greece.

A public debt is any monetary commitment that future taxpayers have been put on the hook for, thus there is absolutely no difference in kind between commitments to pay money to a Treasury Bond investor over 30 years, and commitments to pay money to Social Security or Medicare Recipients over the years to come.