Recently Allan Meltzer, a former Vice Chairman of the Federal Reserve wrote a widely noted and provocative article in the Wall Street Journal called “What Happened to the ‘Depression?’” He called for an end to deficit-inducing stimulus because the cries of Depression from noted mainstream economists has been proven false. His thesis is that these economists, most notably Paul Krugman and IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard, are hyping the downturn to support a specific policy agenda with which he vehemently disagrees.
Conflating issues for ideological purposes
While his opinion piece deserves discussion, I find his argument disingenuous as he too is promoting a specific policy agenda. The crux of the matter is three-fold:
How severe is this downturn and financial crisis?
How severe would it have been had specific policy measures not been taken?
Irrespective of the severity of the downturn, were these the right steps to have followed?
I delineate the argument as such because Meltzer, I believe purposely and misleadingly, conflates these issues for political purposes. His goal is to present a narrative in which stimulus, especially deficit-inducing stimulus is seen as wasteful and misguided. This may be the case (although I do believe certain types of stimulus are purposeful). I don’t intend to examine that issue because it is as much political and ideological as it is economic. It distracts from the real question: how severe could this downturn have been?
Nowhere near the Depression
When it comes to this core question, I agree wholeheartedly with Meltzer. This is not the Great Depression II, nor will it be, nor was it likely to have been. I wrote a fairly personal post on this very point at the height of the panic last year called “Worse than the Great Depression.” My point was that America, the world really, is much richer than it was in 1929. The social safety net is much more robust. And policy makers are more knowledgeable than they were eight years ago. Comparisons to the Great Depression are misplaced.
But, Alan Meltzer is incorrect when he compares this downturn to 1973-75. This downturn is clearly more severe. The financial system has been hit very hard with a number of prominent institutions either dying (Lehman, Bear Stearns, Washington Mutual, Merrill…
One reason China stepped on the fiscal stimulus pedal was to help quiet millions of displaced migrant workers now out of a job. China’s concern over migrant workers was well founded as Violence Kills 156 in China, Hundreds More Detained.
China’s government said more than 700 people were detained after ethnic rioting in the capital of Xinjiang province killed 156 people. Overseas Uighur groups were responsible for the violence, the government said.
A curfew and traffic blockade remained in effect in Urumqi, capital of China’s westernmost province, until 8 a.m., a government press officer, Yang Guoqiang, said in an interview. Three armed guards checked every visitor and bag with metal detectors at the Sheraton Urumqi hotel.
China Central Television yesterday aired images of smoke billowing from vehicles, crowds overturning police cars and bloodied people slumped on sidewalks in Urumqi. More than 825 people were also injured after rioting broke out in the city late on July 5, and the toll is likely to rise, Xinhua cited Liu Yaohua, the region’s police chief, as saying.
As many as 30 million migrant workers have lost their jobs during the global financial crisis, as demand from the U.S. and Europe vanishes, exacerbating already simmering social tensions.
“It’s like Mao Zedong used to say, a spark can spread the fire into the prairie, and that’s the situation in Xinjiang,” said Jean-Philippe Beja, a senior researcher at the French Centre for Studies on Contemporary China in Hong Kong.
Fifty-seven bodies were retrieved from the streets, while the remainder were confirmed dead at hospitals, said Liu, the police chief. Rioters burned 261 vehicles and destroyed 203 shops, authorities said.
Nur Bekri, chairman of the Xinjiang regional government, said in a televised speech yesterday that the riot was triggered by the death of two Uighur workers in a factory brawl in Guangdong province in June, Xinhua reported. That incident also had ethnic overtones, with the Uighur workers fighting ethnic-Han workers, according to the news agency.
Not one macroeconomist acknowledges what I believe to be the true cause of the current collapse of effective demand, the extreme skewness of the income distribution and the attendant indebtedness and inability to spend at previous levels of the bottom half or better of the household income distribution. My reference rant on this subject is here. [Read the rant too, it's a good one. - Ilene]
The macroeconomists keep talking about “monetary stimulus” and “fiscal stimulus” as if they’re talking about stepping on the accelerator of a gasoline internal combustion engine. Except that the engine is running on one cylinder, and if they “prime” the engine, all the gasoline is only going to fire on one cylinder, the one that’s getting the gas—in terms of this metaphor, the rich folks at the top of the currently neo-feudal pecking order.
The fiscal and monetary stimuli of the Great Depression failed to make the income distribution more equal, and failed to reduce unemployment to reasonable levels. Most households weren’t participating in the flow of income to a sufficient degree for that to happen.
It’s time for the policymakers to realize that the economy is in the middle of a vast transition from a debt-financed consumption-heavy economy to one that is higher saving and more investment oriented. That’s a big change, one that will take years. Businesses aren’t going to want to invest in capital formation for consumer markets when they won’t know what the prospective returns are until we burn off some of our excess capacity and consumption patterns stabilize, in sum and in composition, in some new configuration.
It took World War II to equalize the American income distribution last time, a frightening thought. I have no idea what it will take this time.
The best macroeconomic policy right now, and the only one we can afford, is to provide honorable workfare to the growing ranks of the unemployed—in part so that they do not become radicalized and alienated from America—and health benefits so that we don’t compound the losses of the current slump with avoidable sickness.
Macroeconomics in toto—the academic work plus the way it has entered policy—is
"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, `it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less.'
`The question is,' said Alice, `whether you can make words mean so many different things.'
`The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, `to be master -- that's all.'"
Lewis Carroll
I thought it was interesting that Narayan Kocherlakota, president of the Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank, decided to print a recovery assertion now. This seems almost like a followup to the Recession Myth Claim put forward a few years ago by Deregulator in Chief Phil Gramm: ...
The S&P 500 got off to weak start and, after retracing a modest morning rally, spent most of the day in the shallow red with an intraday low of 0.63%. But in the last seven minutes of trading, the index recovered enough to a make a small gain of 0.14%. This is the fourth advance, the first was Monday's 1.60 surge, but the last three have ranged from 0.05% to 0.17% with today's close near the high of the miserly three-day series.
The index is now up 5.02% for 2012, which is 6.93% off the interim closing high.
From an intermediate perspective, the S&P 500 is 95.2% above the March 2009 closing low and 15.6% below the nominal all-time high of October 2007.
Below are two charts of the index, with and without the 50 and 200-day moving averages.
And it was shaping up to be such a good year. According to the latest just released HSBC hedge fund performance update, increasingly more funds are starting to lose it, certainly for the month, but increasingly more for the year. How many LPs will be eager to keep on paying 2% management fees (forget performance) to funds who at best are long AAPL (at least 226 of them), and at worst have underperformed the S&P, for the second year in a row, by anywhere from 5 to 15%?
TIF - Tiffany & Co., Inc. – A surprise earnings miss and a reduced full-year profit and sales forecast from luxury jewelry retailer, Tiffany & Co., took some of the luster out of its shares today, with the stock trading down 8.5% at $56.55 as of 11:50 a.m. in New York. Options activity on Tiffany this morning suggests mixed sentiment on the st...
RealNetworks, Inc. (NASDAQ: RNWK) today announced that it has reached an agreement with the Washington State Attorney General over discontinued e-commerce practices. In accordance with the settlement agreement, RealNetworks has committed to:
Discontinuing the use of pre-checked boxes for purchases of RealNetworks subscription products; Spelling out more clearly the material terms of RealNetworks product offerings; Offering online cancellation of subscription offerings; Enhancing RealNetworks customer support guidelines regarding cancellation. Statement from Thomas Nielsen, President & CEO of RealNetworks:
"About two years ago, the Washington State Attorney General's Office contacted us regarding concerns they had with some of our e-commerce practices.
To learn more, sign up for David's free newsletter and receive the free report from All About Trends - "How To Outperform 90% Of Wall Street With Just $500 A Week." Tell David PSW sent you. - Ilene...
First we'll go to the technicals. Back in mid April I had opined a 'bear flag' formation was being created. [Apr 17, 2012: Potential Bear Flag Forming] But the market being the difficult beast it is, head faked everyone and rather than a break down from said flag it first went UP and nearly touched yearly highs. This caused everyone to think the bear flag had failed…. only to lead to a horrid May in the market. Generally a bear flag will resolve relatively quickly but the longer...
Despite the fact that U.S. equities are well-positioned and well-supported to go up, once again it is the headlines out of Europe—especially Greece—that are scaring off investors. Some are saying that it is now likely (and even desirable) that Greece will default on all its sovereign debt, withdraw from the euro, and severely devalue its domestic currency (Drachma?). This will allow them to operate a balanced budget while pumping cash into growth initiatives, rather than suffer the ravages of Germany-mandated austerity.
Some say, so what? Greece makes up only about 2% of the Eurozone’s overall economy. Nevertheless, you might say that t...
Markets died and then rallied to flat again as European leaders “prepared contingencies” for a possible Grexit
Markets died hard and fast earlier today as major indexes registered as much as 1.5% of losses after news that Euro zone officials were unofficially “preparing contingencies” for a Greek exit from the Euro. Unofficial statements were not enough to keep markets down however, as major indexes rallied back to flat levels by the end of the day.
So the world continues to wait on Europe, as the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (NYSEACA:SPY) gained .05%, the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (NYSEARCA:...
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In this article, please revisit an article written two years ago titled, "The Calm Before the Storm." This article focused on the patent cliff that was looming in the pharmaceutical industry, that was later picked up by the New York Times and several other bloggers! Subsequent articles were written about big pharma company's revenue streams, and the pros and cons of of their later stage pipelines. Other articles have also attempted to identify smaller biotechs with the potential to reap big reward...
My last weekend update is dated from January 30 so after a long hiatus, here is an update of our virtual portfolio. Since the last update, we have closed the AA Money portfolio due to a lack of enthusiasm (and activity) and I have stopped tracking the FAS strangle as the low VIX makes it hard to get rewarded for the risk! But we have added a small $5KP virtual portfolio which does not use any margin.
FAS Money
We have had to recover from a big move up by FAS and a low VIX which keeps option prices low. But the portfolio has gaine about 10% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $5499.00
IWM Money
Not a lot of activity in this portfolio where the main focus is on the large IWM BCS. But the portfolio has grown over 20% since the last update.
Last update P&L - $1998.00
$5KP Portfolio
This is the virtual portfolio that replaced the AA Money portfolio. It does not use margin and we will keep holdings under $5K.
AAPL $50K P...
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Macroeconomics in toto—the academic work plus the way it has entered policy—is
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW. She manages the Favorites backup site
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