Kategori: Økonomi

USA I DAG: Pampere eller døddrukne sørøvere?

Et link til Henrik Fogh Rasmussens klumme i går:

Udover ønsket om at skade en mulig konkurrent til Barack Obama i 2012 er der to mulige forklaringer på Demokraternes kampagne imod Sanford. Den første forklaring er, at Demokraterne ærligt og oprigtigt tror på, at 700 millioner til undervisning vil hjælpe South Carolinas økonomi mere end at bruge det samme beløb til at nedbringe delstatens enorme gældsbyrde. I så fald holder det vand at sammenligne deres dømmekraft og økonomiske indsigt med en beruset sømands.

Den anden mulige forklaring er de mange millioner dollar, som Demokraterne hvert år modtager fra lærernes fagforeninger. Og hvis lærernes politiske engagement er forklaringen, hvor stor en del af det enorme statsunderskud i USA er så i virkeligheden drevet af gammeldags pamperi?

Economic links

A song for Paul Krugman (vs. Timothy Geitner).

Geithner’s own words on his plan for a solution for the toxic assets. Grand plans, costly for taxpayers. But it is basically the same political solution to any societal problem that hits a lot of people at the same time: just spread the cost to everybody through taxation and redestribution. If a sufficiently large (or influential) number of people make wrong and irresponsible decisions at the same time, the normal laws of responsibility are not applicable. Rinse and repeat.

More on the plan here (with links).

On the same note: Why isn’t the Obama economical advisory board meeting in public? Private meetings, private conference calls – what became of openness and honesty in discussing the nation’s greatest challenge?

Hypocritical republicans

The Republicans are all about “Small Government” these days, but doesn’t their new-found chasity feel kind of hollow? Considering the Bush-year’s gigantic budgets and expansion of executive power, it sees a little late to find your libertarian roots.

Here’s a historian who thinks so, Julian E. Zelizer:

After the past eight years in American politics, it is impossible to reconcile current promises by conservatives for small government with the historical record of President Bush’s administration. Most experts on the left and right can find one issue upon which to agree: The federal government expanded significantly after 2001 when George W. Bush was in the White House.

The growth did not just take place with national security spending but with domestic programs as well. Even as the administration fought to reduce the cost of certain programs by preventing cost-of-living increases in benefits, in many other areas of policy — such as Medicare prescription drug benefits, federal education standards and agricultural subsidies — the federal government expanded by leaps and bounds. And then there are the costs of Afghanistan and Iraq.

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There were some areas where Bush backed off government cuts because programs were too popular, like Social Security. In other areas, like federal education policy and prescription drug benefits, the president seemed enthusiastic about bigger government.

Bush and Cheney also embraced a vision of presidential power that revolved around a largely unregulated and centralized executive branch with massive authority over the citizenry. This was a far cry from the days of Ohio Sen. Robert Taft, a Republican who constantly warned about the dangers of presidential power to America’s liberties.

The same goes for presidents like Eisenhower, Nixon, Bush Sr. and even Ronald Reagan. Is the on-march of government just impossible to stop – does it have it’s own inertia – or don’t politicians really mean it when they say they want lesser government?

Recommendation of the Day

I was an ambivalent socialist before I read this; now, I’m a rabid Austrian. Get this book, and prepare to have your mind blown.

Librarything-user in a review of Henry Hazlitt’s Economics In One Lesson. An amazing book. Scary thing: Present politicians are repeating all the same fallacies that Hazlitt uncovered 60 years ago (and Bastiat a hundred years before Hazlitt) over and over again.

The A.I.G. bonuses outrage…

is really just another reason why we shouldn’t nationalize banks. If you can’t stand they way they do business – including the way they make their contracts – don’t give them any money!

That may strike many people as a bit of convenient legalese, but maybe there is something to it. If you think this economy is a mess now, imagine what it would look like if the business community started to worry that the government would start abrogating contracts left and right.

As much as we might want to void those A.I.G. pay contracts, Pearl Meyer, a compensation consultant at Steven Hall & Partners, says it would put American business on a worse slippery slope than it already is. Business agreements of other companies that have taken taxpayer money might fall into question. Even companies that have not turned to Washington might seize the opportunity to break inconvenient contracts.

Obama som socialdemokrat

Klumme her fra Finn Ziegler.

En del af pengene er øremærket eller afsat til projekter, som skal øge populariteten af demokratiske kongrespolitikere i hjemstaterne. Eksempelvis er 10% af de midler, som er afsat til udvikling af højhastighedstog, øremærket til et projekt, som skal forbinde Las Vegas med L.A. Det er tilfældigvis her, lederen af Demokraterne i senatet, Harry Leid, er valgt (Nevada).

Ikke overraskende er Kongressens budgetkontor nået frem til, at stimuleringspakken vil have en negativ virkning på væksten i økonomien på længere sigt. Pakken øger naturligvis efterspørgslen på kort sigt, men den forbedrer ikke incitamenter og strukturer i økonomien – og på sigt er der risiko for, at private virksomheder får sværere ved at skaffe arbejdskraft, når arbejdskraften er beskæftiget med at vedligeholde skoler, isolere huse, installere digitalbokse eller uddele kondomer.

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Det er ikke meget mere end 1 måned siden præsident Obama under sin tiltrædelse efterlyste mådehold og lovede omhyggelig granskning af alle udgifter på statsbudgettet. Obama lovede også større gennemsigtighed, når politikerne vedtager nye love. Disse løfter er brudt. Den største udgiftspakke nogensinde i USA er gennemført i hast og forhandlet bag lukkede døre. De politikere, som har stemt for loven, kan umuligt have læst den. De har haft mere travlt med at finde ønsker og projekter, der gavner deres genvalgschancer, frem fra skufferne. Offentligheden er reelt blevet holdt ude, mens præsidenten, Demokratere og lobbyisterne strikkede pakken på 1.400 sider sammen.

What is an Earmark?

“Earmarks” are items on congressional spending bills where the funding goes to specific, localised projects in either one state or a few states (more bridges for the Ohio river) or for a very specific group of people (one-legged teenage moms in Nebraska). The “Earmark” is typically either a “pet project” of a specific lawmaker or grease for a lawmaker’s local community (electorate) in a state or part of a state. An earmark is also called “pork” (the Danish term, used somewhat differently, is “valgflæsk”).

Economically, earmarks are spending that would not take place if the beneficiaries of the earmark had to spend the money themselves. An earmark can only become a reality because the cost of the earmark is spread out on all taxpayers. Of course, this goes for most government spending, but earmarks are the extreme text-book case.

Politically, earmarks become a reality because Congress doesn’t vote on spending one item at a time, but rather vote on gigantic bills full of hundreds or thousands of items. In this way earmarks find their way into the bill as a way of buying favor among the Congressmen. “You support my California windmills and I will support your bridge-to-nowhere in Alaska”. It is a common feature of political life in all democratic states, not only in the US.

Additionally, the advantage of including earmarks in one big spending bill is that if the President wants the earmark out of the bill, he will have to veto the whole bill or send it back to Congress. This is usually too much trouble, so the earmarks stay even if the President doesn’t want them there. After all, there’s so many other good things in the bill.

Earmarks are a byproduct of the way democracy works. See Public choice theory.

USA I DAG: “Tæt på Obama”

Min nyeste klumme i Berlingske Tidende: Tæt på Obama.

Hvis USA er verdens centrum, så er Washington DC omdrejningspunktet i USA. Der var engang, hvor New York brystede sig af titlen »Hele verdens hovedstad«. De tider er forbi. Verdens økonomiske og politiske fremtid bliver afgjort lige her, i et pænt, hvidt hus et par stenkast fra vores lejede lejlighed. Det er lige før, man kan vinke til Obama, når man går forbi: »Held og lykke med 5-års planerne!«

USA I DAG: God investering eller spild af penge?

Dagens USA I DAG klumme er af Henrik Fogh Rasmussen:

Problemet er selvfølgelig, at det ikke altid er nok bare at kaste penge efter problemerne – specielt ikke hvis prisen er en enorm statsgæld, som skal betales tilbage af skatteyderne i fremtiden. I den nuværende sikkerhedspolitiske situation er det formentlig en god idé at investere i flere soldater og diplomater, men det er langtfra sikkert, at Obamas statslige forbrugsfest vil have den ønskede effekt. Enhver politiker, som tror, at man kan komme ud af en økonomisk krise gennem offentligt forbrug, bør kigge godt og grundigt på Japan, som lancerede en offentlig forbrugsfest i 1990erne og i dag har den højeste statsgæld i den industrialiserede verden uden at have overvundet den krise, som startede helt tilbage i 1990.