Economische aanraders: Veren of Lood biedt u op zondag wekelijks een inkijkje in (minstens) 10 belangrijke of informatieve artikelen en interviews die de voorafgaande 7 dagen op economisch terrein verschenen op onafhankelijke sites.

De kop is de link naar het oorspronkelijke artikel, waarvan de samenvatting of de eerste (twee) alinea’s hier gegeven worden.

Sinds december 2015 nemen we ook een paar extra links op naar artikelen die minder specialistische kennis vereisen. Deze met *** gemerkte artikelen zijn ons inziens ook interessant voor lezers met weinig basiskennis van economie.

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The hard road of free markets – John H. Cochrane
8 december
The fundamental reason so many markets are not free, and so dysfunctional, is that the voters of our democracy don’t really want freedom. Freedom will come when we want it, when we insist on it, when the average voter sees a free market solution rather than endless controls as the answer to real world problems. The sad paradox of free markets is that free markets do not need people to understand them to work. But democracy does require voters to understand how things work.
In that vein today’s internet browsing (both HT marginal revolution) brings good news and bad news.
Good news – one more piece of evidence that people from left and right are finally beginning to see the huge damage of zoning and construction restrictions, including inequality, income segregation, and perpetuation of economic status. That “progressives” now see this too is a most heartening development.
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The Fed’s QE-Unwind is Really Happening – Wolf Richter
7 december
Fed’s assets drop to lowest level in over three years.
The Fed’s balance sheet for the week ending December 6, released today, completes the second month of the QE-unwind. Total assets initially zigzagged within a tight range to end October where it started, at $4,456 billion. But in November, holdings drifted lower, and by December 6 were at $4,437 billion, the lowest since September 17, 2014:
“Balance sheet normalization?” Well, in baby steps. But the devil is in the details.
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China’s productivity performance revisited from the perspective of ICTs – Harry Wu, David T. Liang
9 december
It has been claimed that over 40% of China’s post-reform GDP growth could be attributed to growth in total factor productivity. This column argues that this claim is based on a mis-specified model applied to misused aggregate data. Using a growth accounting framework, it shows that Chinese ICT-producing and ICT-using manufacturing industries were the most important drivers of productivity growth between 1981 and 2012, enabling the economy to compensate for heavy productivity losses caused by misallocation of capital and government interventions.
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***The Cost Basis of our Economy is Spiraling Out of Control – Charles Hugh Smith
5 december
What will it take to radically reduce the cost basis of our economy?
If we had to choose one “big picture” reason why the vast majority of households are losing ground, it would either be the stagnation of income or the spiraling out of control cost basis of our economy, that is, the essential foundational expenses of households, government and enterprise.
Clearly, both rising costs and stagnating income cause households to lose ground, i.e. their income buys fewer goods and services every year.
I’ve often covered the dynamics of stagnating income for the bottom 95%, and real-world inflation, i.e. a decline in purchasing power.
But neither of these dynamics fully describes the relentless upward spiral of the cost basis of our economy, that is, the cost of essentials and the foundations of the economy: education, healthcare, energy and labor.
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Bank of Japan Tapers (Quietly), QE Party Over – Wolf Richter
4 december
No flashy announcement, to avoid alarming the markets.
After years of blistering asset purchases, the Bank of Japan disclosed today that it held a total of ¥521.6 trillion in assets as of November 30, including Japanese Government Bonds (JGBs), gold, corporate bonds, Japanese REITs, equity ETFs, loans, etc. That is quite a pile, so to speak. It amounts to about 96% of Japan’s GDP.
By this measure, the BOJ’s balance sheet dwarfs the Fed’s balance sheet, which amounts to 23% of US GDP. When it comes to QE, no one can hold a candle to Japan. Its holdings of JGBs alone rose to ¥443.6 trillion. Its balance sheet looks like a typical post-Financial-Crisis central-bank balance sheet on steroids (chart in trillion yen):
There a couple of differences compared to other central banks: One, the BOJ started QE long before anyone even called it “QE,” but in 2013, it really got going, and those giant moves made the prior periods of QE look minuscule. And two, the BOJ actually unwound some of its earlier QE starting in late 2005 but soon gave up on it.
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***The $10 Trillion Investment Plan To Integrate The Eurasian Supercontinent – Federico Pieraccini
9 december
The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), by lending out money using an alternative currency to the dollar, opens up huge spaces for investment and the strategic transformation of the region
The overland integration of the BRI, led by China and Russia, aims to create different transit routes for goods as well as different areas of economic development along the new Chinese Silk Road. A great opportunity is thereby opened up for Chinese banks and for private investors interested in creating infrastructure or developing potential industrial poles in the countries involved in this grand Chinese initiative.
Hong Qi, president of China Minsheng Bank, recently said during an economic forum held in Beijing regarding investments in the BRI that there is potentially about $10 trillion worth of investments in infrastructure in the countries that make up the BRI, such as in railways, urban development, logistics and cross-border e-commerce.
At this point, more than $10 billion has already been committed in investments, thanks to companies already present in over thirty countries and regons along the BRI, with the ongoing intention of financing these loans through China’s public and private sectors. According to data from the China Banking Regulatory Commission, a total of nine Chinese banks are involved in the financing of projects, with 62 branches having been opened in 26 countries. A further $10 billion could come from European countries as a result of investments stemming from the China-CEEC forum.
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New evidence on the effectiveness of macroprudential measures – Yener Altunbaş, Mahir Binici, Leonardo Gambacorta, Andres Murcia
5 december
The main objective of macroprudential tools is to reduce systemic risks – in particular, the frequency and depth of financial crises. Most studies look at the impact of macroprudential measures on credit growth, focusing on country-wide data or bank-level information. This column presents new evidence using credit registry data at the bank-firm level to evaluate the impact on bank risk measures. Results show that macroprudential tools help stabilise credit cycles and contain bank risk.
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Enron Déjà Vu? Citi, BofA, HSBC, Goldman, BNP on the Hook as Steinhoff Spirals Down – Wolf Richter
8 december
$21 billion of debt. Off-balance-sheet entities. Moody’s wakes up, downgrades it four notches, with more to come.
Steinhoff International Holdings – which acquired nine companies in the past two years, including Mattress Firm Holding in the US, and which presides over a cobbled-together empire of retailers and assorted other companies in the US, Europe, Africa, and Australasia – issued another devastating announcement today: It cancelled its “private” annual meeting with bankers in London on Monday and rescheduled it for December 19.
This is the meeting when the company normally discusses its annual report with its global bankers. The annual report should have been released on Wednesday, December 6. But on precisely that day, the company announced cryptically that “accounting irregularities” had “come to light” that required “further investigation,” and that CEO Markus Jooste had been axed “with immediate effect,” and that it would postpone its annual report indefinitely.
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***The WTO: Useless for Trade, Useful for the State – Carmen Elena Dorobăț
9 december
On Monday, WTO officials will gather in Buenos Aires for their 11th ministerial conference. There is very little hope that any of the deals on the agenda will be reached, as both the WTO’s negotiations and its dispute settlement system have long been paralyzed by political bickering and a deep-seated inefficiency in the organization itself. Anxious WTO ministers (such as the EU’s trade commissioner) are now grasping at straws and blaming Trump and his lack of support for the WTO’s troubles.
Yet twenty-two years after its creation, the organization has almost nothing to show for it as far as trade liberalization is concerned.
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You need an ‘extra moment’ to assess the impact of the exchange rate – Filippo di Mauro, Vlad Demian, Jan-Paul van de Kerke
8 december
It is well-established in theoretical and empirical models that an exchange rate movement affects exports, but we are far from a consensus on the size and relevance of this effect. Macro-based analyses tend to yield very low values for the elasticity of exports to the exchange rate, while micro- or sectoral-based estimations tends to be higher. This column shows that one reason for the disagreement is that macro estimations fail to incorporate the characteristics of the underlying distribution of firm productivity and its asymmetries. Doing so generates higher elasticity estimates than the macro estimations, and greater country-level diversification.
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The Zealous Pursuit of State-Sponsored Collapse – MN Gordon
8 december
When Bakers Go Fishing
Government intervention into a nation’s economy is as foolish as attempting to control the sun’s rise and fall by law or force. But that doesn’t mean governments don’t meddle each and every day with the best – and worst – of intentions. The United States government is no exception.
Over the years, layers and layers of interference by various federal, state, and local agencies have built up like grime on a kitchen window. The grease shines and smells of something fierce. The layers of government grime also drip and ooze into every crack and crevice of the economy.
These days, for example, it is impossible to carry out a simple private transaction with your barber or barista without some form of government interference. Has your barber obtained the required license and paid the obligatory fees to be able to legally taper your neck line? Has your barista’s espresso bean grinder passed city health inspection?
Is the hot Cup of Joe served in a paper cup of appropriate recycled material composition? Did the hot beverage exceed the legally accepted temperature standard? Did state and local governments receive their tax exaction upon payment?
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Marx, Robotics and the Collapse of Profits – Charles Hugh Smith
9 december
Whatever commoditized robots can produce is no longer profitable; rather, the production destroys capital.
Yesterday I discussed how robots only do work that’s profitable, as any enterprise buying, programming and maintaining robots to do unprofitable work will soon be out of business.
What few observers seem to grasp is that automation goes through two distinct stages of profitability: when robots/automation first replace high-cost human workers, profits soar. Observers then draw projections based on the belief that these initial profits will continue essentially forever.
But this initial boost phase of profits gushing from automation is short-lived; as the tools of automation are themselves commoditized and become available to anyone on the planet with some capital and ambition, lower cost automated competitors come to market, destroying the pricing power of the first adopter.
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***Bitcoin Loses Steam as Steam Loses Bitcoin – Matthew McCaffrey
8 december
The skyrocketing price of Bitcoin has dominated the financial news for the past few weeks, and the usual suspects are queuing up to offer predictions about its continued rise or inevitable fall. Yet it’s not all good news for fans of the cryptocurrency: in a notable decision, the digital distribution platform Steam has announced that it will no longer be accepting payment in Bitcoin.
In the grand scheme of things, Steam’s new policy will likely have little impact on the use or price of Bitcoin as such. Rather, the decision is significant because it highlights an underlying economic question about the future of the cryptocurrency. Specifically, Steam’s example shows that despite an enormous gain in market value, Bitcoin still has a long way to go before it becomes money.
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Monetary Mental Illness – J.D. Alt
6 december
It is literally painful to watch our political leaders’ efforts to rethink and restructure how we are going levy taxes on ourselves as a collective society. It is like watching a family member struggling with mental illness: the demons being wrestled with are imaginary—yet they have the palpable force somehow of a granite wall. And as the struggle with this palpable monolith unfolds, even we—the clear observers of reality—forget that it is imaginary; when we do remember, the pain becomes excruciating for the simple reason that we know it is completely unnecessary.
Why does our political system choose to believe and struggle with the imaginary constraint that taxes must pay for sovereign spending? How can we explain to ourselves, in the face of this rock-solid demon, that the simple logic of fiat money demonstrates that sovereign spending must occur first, with taxes collected after? How can we reassure our terrified and confused representatives in congress that if our sovereign government collects back fewer dollars than it issues and spends, the difference is not our collective “debt”—it is, in fact, our collective savings? But the demon will not allow us these explanations.
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Disclaimer: De VoL-redactie selecteert deze artikelen op interessante inzichten, of naar wij denken nuttige informatie. Wij kunnen echter geen enkele aansprakelijkheid aanvaarden voor de gevolgen van beslissingen die op grond hiervan door lezers zijn genomen, zakelijk zomin als privé.

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