- You know the story triumphantly heard in the West. Markets
work best when governments let them operate freely - unconstrained by rules,
regulations and taxes about which noted economist Milton Friedman once
said in an interview he was "in favor of cutting....under any circumstances
and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible (because) the
big problem is not taxes (but government) spending.
-
- Friedman is no longer with us, but by his reasoning,
the solution to curbing it is "to hold down the amount of income (government)
has (and presto) the way to do it is to cut taxes." He seemed to forget
about borrowing and the Federal Reserve's ability to print limitless amounts
of ready cash the way it's been doing for years and during the current
credit squeeze. Friedman further added in the same interchange "If
the White House were under (GW) Bush, and House and Senate....under the
Democrats, I do not believe there would be much spending."
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- Clearly, either the Nobel laureate wasn't paying attention
or age was taking its toll late in his life. Since 2001, Democrats embraced
tax cutting and overspending policies as enthusiastically as Republicans
with both parties directing the benefits hugely to the right pockets. They're
on Wall Street and in corporate boardrooms where recipients know "free
markets" work great with a little creative resource directing from
Washington.
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- Financial Market Efficiency
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- In investment finance, Eugene Fama is generally regarded
as the father of efficient market theory, also known as the "efficient
market hypothesis (EMH)." He wrote his 1964 doctoral dissertation
on it titled "The Behavior of Stock Market Prices" in which he
concluded stock (and by implication other financial market) price movements
are unpredictable and follow a "random walk" reflecting all available
information known at the time. Thus, no one, in theory, has an advantage
over another as everyone has equal access to everything publicly known
(aside from "insiders" with a huge advantage). That includes
rumored and actual financial, economic, political, social and all other
information, all of which is reflected in asset prices at any given time.
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- Those buying this theory believe Milton Friedman knew
best. He became the modern-day godfather of "free market" capitalism
and leading exponent that markets work efficiently and best when unfettered
by government intervention that generally gets things wrong. In 1958, Friedman
explained it in his famous "I, Pencil" essay. In it, he illustrated
the notion of Adam Smith's invisible hand and conservative economist Friedrich
Hayek's teachings on the importance of "dispersed knowledge"
and how the price system communicates information to "make (people)
do desirable things without anyone having to tell them what to do."
-
- Friedman's "pencil" story explained "a
complex combination of miracles: a tree, zinc, copper, graphite, and so
on." Added to these ingredients from nature is "an even more
extraordinary miracle: the configuration of creative human energies - millions
of tiny know-hows configuring naturally and spontaneously (responding to)
human necessity and desire and in the absence of any human master-minding."
None of them working independently was trying to make a pencil. No one
directed them from a central office. They didn't know each other, lived
in many countries, spoke different languages, practiced different religions,
and may have even hated each other. Yet, their unrelated contributions
produced a pencil.
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- By Friedman's reasoning, this could never happen through
central planning. It sounds good in theory, but how does it jibe with reality.
The Soviets split the atom, were first in space ahead of the US with Sputnik
1, and developed many advanced technologies even though they were outclassed
and outspent by the West overall with greater resources to do it.
-
- In practical reality, governments, like individuals operating
freely in the marketplace, can succeed or fail. It comes down to people
skills and how well they do their jobs. Top down or bottom up has little
final effect on the end result, but does direct what's undertaken and what
isn't. Top down in Canada, Western Europe and Venezuela delivers excellent
state-funded health care to everyone. Bottom up in America offers it to
anyone who can pay, but if not, you're out of luck if your employer won't
provide it. Forty-seven million and counting had their luck run out, and
Friedman's pencil making miracle won't treat them when they'll ill.
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- Put another way, if "free market" capitalism
works best and America is its lead exponent, why then:
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- -- is poverty high and rising in the world's richest
country;
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- -- incomes stagnating; -- higher education becoming unaffordable
for the majority;
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- -- public education crumbling; -- jobs at all levels
disappearing to low-wage countries;
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- -- the nation's vital infrastructure in a deplorable
state;
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- -- 3.5 million or more homeless and heading higher in
the wake of subprime defaults;
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- -- the standard of living of most in the country declining;
and,
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- -- the nation, in fact, bankrupt according to a 2006
study for the St. Louis Fed.
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- Clearly, something is wrong with the "pencil miracle"
working for some but not for most. Friedman no longer can respond and his
acolytes won't.
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- The Myth that Markets Get It Right and Operate Efficiently
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- Economist Hyman Minsky was mostly ignored while he lived,
but his star may be rising 11 years after his death in 1996. Some described
him as a radical Keynesian based on the theories of economist John Maynard
Keynes who taught economies operate best when mixed. He believed state
and private sectors both play important roles with government stepping
in to stimulate or constrain economic activity whenever private sector
forces aren't able to do it best alone.
-
-
- It's the opposite of "supply-side" Reaganomics
and its illusory "trickle down" notion that economic growth works
best through stimulative tax cuts its proponents claim promote investment
that benefits everyone. It was Reagan-baloney then and now, and so is the
notion markets are efficient and work best when left alone.
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- Minsky explained it, and people are now taking note in
the wake of current market turbulence. His work showed financial market
exuberance often becomes excessive, especially if no regulatory constraints
are in place to curb it. He developed his theories in two books - "John
Maynard Keynes" and "Stabilizing an Unstable Economy" as
well as in numerous articles and essays.
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- In them, he constructed a "financial instability
hypothesis" building on the work of Keynes' "General Theory of
Employment, Interest and Money." He provided a framework for distinguishing
between stabilizing and destabilizing free market debt structures he summarized
as follows:
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- "Three distinct income-debt relations for economic
units....labeled as hedge, speculative and Ponzi finance, can be identified."
-
- -- "Hedge financing units are those which can fulfill
all of their contractual payment obligations by their cash flows: the greater
the weight of equity financing in the liability structure, the greater
the likelihood that the unit is a hedge financing unit."
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- -- "Speculative finance units are units that can
meet their payment commitments on 'income account' on their liabilities,
even as they cannot repay the principle out of income cash flows. Such
units need to 'roll over' their liabilities - issue new debt to meet commitments
on maturing debt."
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- -- "For Ponzi units, the cash flows from operations
are (insufficient)....either (to repay)....principle or interest on outstanding
debts by their cash flows from operations. Such units can sell assets or
borrow. Borrowing to pay interest....lowers the equity of a unit, even
as it increases liabilities and the prior commitment of future incomes."
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- "....if hedge financing dominates....the economy
may....be (in) equilibrium. In contrast, the greater the weight of speculative
(and/or) Ponzi finance, the greater the likelihood that the economy is
a deviation-amplifying system....(based on) the financial instability hypothesis
(and) over periods of prolonged prosperity, the economy transits from financial
relations (creating stability) to financial relations (creating) an unstable
system."
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- "....over a protracted period of good times, capitalist
economies (trend toward) a large weight (of) units engaged in speculative
and Ponzi finance. (If this happens when) an economy is (experiencing inflation
and the Federal Reserve tries) to exorcise (it) by monetary constraint....speculative
units will become Ponzi (ones) and the net worth of previous Ponzi units
will quickly evaporate. Consequently, units with cash flow shortfalls will
be forced to (sell out). This is likely to lead to a collapse of asset
values."
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- Minsky developed a seven stage framework showing how
this works:
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- Stage One - Displacement
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- Disturbances of various kinds change investor perceptions
and disrupt markets. It may be a tightened economic policy from higher
interest rates or investors and lenders retrenching in reaction to:
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- -- a housing bubble, credit squeeze, and growing subprime
mortgage delinquencies and defaults with spreading contagion affecting:
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- -- other mortgages, and the toxic waste derivative alchemy
of:
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- -- collateralized debt obligation (CDO) instruments (packages
of mostly risky junk and other debt),
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- --commercial and residential mortgage-backed securities
(CMBS and RBMS - asset backed by mortgage principle and interest payments),
and even
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- -- commercial and AAA paper; plus
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- -- home equity loans harder to service after mortgage
reset increases.
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- Stage Two - Prices start to rise
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- Following displacement, markets bottom and prices begin
rising as fundamentals improve. Investors start noticing as it becomes
evident and gains momentum.
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- Stage Three - Easy credit
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- Recovery needs help and plentiful easy credit provides
it. As conditions improve, it fuels speculation enticing more investors
to jump in for financial opportunities or to borrow for a new home or other
consumer spending. The easier and more plentiful credit gets, the more
willing lenders are to give it including to borrowers with questionable
credit ratings. Yale Economist Robert Shiller shares the view that "booms....generate
laxity in standards for loans because there a general sense of optimism
(like) what we saw in the late 80s" preceding the 1987 crash that
doesn't necessarily signal an imminent one now.
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- New type financial instruments and arrangements also
arise as lenders find creative and risky ways to make more money. In recent
years, sharply rising housing prices enticed more buyers, and lenders got
sloppy and greedy by providing interest-only mortgages to marginal buyers
unable to make a down payment.
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- Stage Four - Overtrading
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- The cheaper and easier credit is, the greater the incentive
to overtrade to cash in. Trading volume rises and shortages emerge. Prices
begin accelerating and easy profits are made creating more greed and foolish
behavior.
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- Stage Five - Euphoria
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- This is the most dangerous phase. Cooler heads are worried
but fraudsters prevail claiming this time is different, and markets have
a long way to go before topping out. Greed trumps good sense and investors
foolishly think they're safe and can get out in time. Stories of easy riches
abound, so why miss out. Into the fire they go, often after the easy money
was made, and the outcome is predictable. The fraudsters sell at the top
to small investors mistakenly buying at the wrong time and getting burned.
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- Stage Six - Insider profit taking
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- The pros have seen it before, understand things have
gone too far, and quietly sell to the greater fools buying all they can.
It's the beginning of the end.
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- Stage Seven - Revulsion
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- When cheap credit ends, enough insiders sell, or an unexpected
piece of bad news roils markets, it becomes infectious. It can happen quickly
turning euphoria into revulsion panicking investors to sell. They begin
outnumbering buyers and prices tumble. Downward momentum is far greater
and faster than when heading up.
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- Sound familiar? It's a "Minsky Moment," and
the irony is most investors know easy credit, overtrading and euphoria
create bubbles that always burst. The internet and tech one did in March,
2000, and since mid-July, reality caught up with excess speculation in
equity prices, the housing bubble, growing mortgage delinquencies and subprime
defaults. Goldilocks awoke and sought shelter as lenders remembered how
to say "no." This time, central banks rode to the rescue (they
hope) with huge cash infusions, the Fed cut its discount rate a half point
August 17, and it signaled lower "fed funds" rates ahead if markets
remain tight.
-
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- Intervention may reignite "animal spirits"
and work short-term but won't easily band-aid over what noted investor
Jeremy Grantham calls "the broadest overpricing of financial assets
- equities, real estate, and fixed income - ever recorded" with the
financial system dangerously "overstretched (and) overleveraged."
His view is that current conditions have "almost never been this dire,"
and we're "watching a (too late to stop) very slow motion train wreck."
Minsky would have noticed, too.
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- Grantham's exhaustive research shows all markets revert
to their mean values, and all bubbles burst as the greatest Fed-engineered
equity one ever in US history did in 2000 but didn't complete its corrective
work. In Grantham's view, lots more pain is coming and before it's over,
it will be mean, nasty and long, affecting everyone. Minsky saw it earlier,
studied it, and wrote about it exhaustively when no one noticed. If he
were living today, he'd say "I told you so."
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- Federal Reserve Engineered Housing Bubble and Resultant
Financial Market Turmoil
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- Astute observers continue to speculate and comment that
the housing bubble and resultant current financial market turmoil came
from deliberate widespread malfeasance aided by considerable cash infusion
help from the Federal Reserve in the lead on the scheme.
-
- Economist Paul Krugman is one of the latest with his
views expressed in an August 16 New York Times op ed piece titled "Workouts,
Not Bailouts." He began by debunking Wall Streeter Treasury Secretary
Henry Paulson's ludicrous April claim that the housing market was "at
or near the bottom" followed by his equally absurd August view that
subprime mortgages were "largely contained." Krugman's response:
"the time for denial is past....housing starts and applications for
building permits have fallen to their lowest levels in a decade, showing
that home construction is still in free fall....home prices are still way
too high (at 70% above their long-term trend values according to the Center
for Economic and Policy Research, and) the housing slump (will be around)
for years, not months" with all those empty unbought homes needing
hard to find buyers to fill them.
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- In addition, mortgage problems are "anything but
contained" and aren't confined to the subprime category. Krugman
believes current real estate troubles and mortgage fallout bear similarity
to the late 1990s stock bubble. Like today, they were accompanied by market
manipulation and scandalous fraud at companies like Enron and WorldCom.
In his view, "it is becoming increasingly clear that the real-estate
bubble of recent years (like the 1990s stock bubble)....caused and was
fed by widespread malfeasance." He left out the Fed but named co-conspiratorial
players like Moody's Investors Service and other rating agencies getting
paid lots of money to claim "dubious mortgage-backed securities to
be highest-quality, AAA assets." In this role, they're no different
than were "complaisant accountants" like Arthur Andersen that
lost its license to practice from its role in the Enron fallout.
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- In the end, this scandal may be more far-reaching than
earlier ones because so many underwriters and other firms are part of the
fraud or are seeking to profit from it. At this point, it's hard separating
villains from victims as, in some cases, they may be one in the same. They're
all involved in dispersing up to trillions of dollars of risks through
the derivative alchemy of highly complex, hard to value, packages of mostly
subprime CDO and various other type debt instruments that may even end
up in so-called safe money market funds unbeknownst to their unsuspecting
owners.
-
- Before this scandal ends, they'll be plenty of pain to
go around, but as always, small investors and low income subprime and other
mortgage homeowners will be hurt most. Krugman says this is "a clear
case for government intervention," but it won't be the kind he wants.
He cites a "serious market failure (needing fixing to) help (as many
as) hundreds of thousands" of Americans who otherwise may lose their
homes and/or financial nest eggs. Faced with this problem, "The federal
government shouldn't be providing bailouts, (it should) arrange workouts....we've
done (it) before (and it worked) - for third-world countries, not for US
citizens." It helped both debtors escape default and creditors get
back most of their money.
-
- By providing huge cash infusions to ease credit and reignite
"animal spirits," the Fed and other central banks showed they
aren't listening. It proves what Ralph Nader said in his August 19 Countercurrents
article called "Corporate Capitalists: Government Comes To The Rescue"
that's also on CounterPunch titled "Greed and Folly on Wall Street."
With "corporate capitalists' knees" a bit shaky, Nader recalled
what his father once explained years ago when he asked and then told his
children: "Why will capitalism always survive? Because socialism will
always be used to save it." Put another way, the American business
ethic has always been socialism for the rich, and, sink or swim, free market
capitalism for the rest of us.
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- As the housing slump deepens and many tens of thousands
of subprime and other mortgage holders default, vulture investors will
profit hugely buying troubled assets at a fraction of their value as they
always do in troubled economic times. Writer Danny Schechter calls the
current subprime credit squeeze debacle a "sub-crime ponzi scheme
(in a) highly rigged casino-like market system" targeting unsuspecting
victims. Schechter wants a "jailout" for "criminal....financial
institutions (posing) as respectable players." Krugman, on the other
hand, wants a "workout" for the victims. Neither will get what
he wants. In the end, as ordinary people lose out, big government will
again rescue "corporate capitalism" (at least in the short-term)
the way it always does when it gets in trouble. It's the "American
way." It'll be no different this time.
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- Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached in
Chicago at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
-
- Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and
listen to The Steve Lendman News and Information Hour on TheMicroEffect.com
Saturdays at noon US central time.
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