Tag Archives: political economy

One Aspect of the New Employment Numbers

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It’s temporary work, whether under contract or not.  It’s also part-time, whether under contract or not (OK, that’s two aspects.  Sue me.)

The nation’s unemployment rate still stands at 7.6%, but there is one area showing significant improvement: temporary and contracting work.

An estimated 17 million people are employed in these areas of the labor force, making up 12% of all employed people in the US.

Here’s a clue of why that is:

Full-time workers come with benefits packages that tend to include health care and retirement plans, which come with a hefty price tag for companies still unsure of the economic recovery.

Health care and pensions—for those employers still using these instead of 401(k)-like retirement plans—are horribly expensive.  And no, this isn’t another anti-Obama screed.  Even before Obamacare and public service union pension-caused city bankruptcies, health and pension benefits were horribly expensive.  The Panic of 2008 just brought those to light, and Obamacare only made a terrible health side worse.

And there’s that uncertainty about this failed recovery and when it will start in earnest.  Here’s James Sherk, senior policy analyst in Labor Economics at The Heritage Foundation:

In many cases, employers are not confident to bring in regular, full-time employees because it may hurt the entire firm.  This is the most disturbing trend, due to the weak economy.  It’s an economy and situation where employers aren’t seeing their shelves pick up, so they won’t commit to hiring a full-time employee.

“Hurt the entire firm.”  This is an area where Obamacare exacerbates an already bad situation.  A full-time employee costs the employer a minimum $2,000 in health benefits—that’s the fine the employer pays for not providing benefits that suit the Federal government’s definition of adequacy.  If the business isn’t there to cover that added cost, the employer would be stupid to hire that employee, at least full-time.

Another downside is that part-time workers or contract workers who know their contract expires in a few months (another version of part-time work) have their own uncertainty about the future—their future.  This makes them less willing to spend the money they do earn until they have to.  That reduced demand lowers the ability of employers to sell their product.  Those reduced sales lower the employers’ interest and ability to hire.  That reduced hiring incentive….

Good for the Latvians

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Mostly.  They are, after all, joining the Euro Zone next January, to their long-term detriment.  However, other than that, they clearly have the right idea, much to the chagrin of Euro Zone officialdom (given that chagrin, they’re still drawing Latvia into the fold.  What does that say about the consistency of officialdom’s judgment?).

Here’s why I like the Latvians, so far.

Latvia’s corporate tax rate is just 15%, far lower than the EU average of 23.5%.  Within the euro zone, only Ireland and Cyprus, each at 12.5%, have lower rates.

The problem here isn’t that Latvia’s tax rate is too low, as Euro Zone officialdom insists, it’s that the EU average is too high (never mind conflating the EU with the Euro Zone).  Moreover, officialdom—both Euro Zone’s and EU’s—arrogantly refuse to justify their claimed need for all that money, refuse to explain how all that money is better handled by them and not by the ordinary citizen of the EU/Euro Zone, refuse to justify the things on which they spend all that OPM beyond insulting generalities like “it’s good for everybody.”

Here’s more of why I like the Latvians:

Holding companies—firms that hold stock of other companies—enjoy further benefits in Latvia.  Since the beginning of 2013, their foreign profits earned via dividends and stock sales have been tax free.  Transferring such profits out of country is also not taxed.  Furthermore, as of 2014 Latvian holding companies will no longer have to pay taxes on interest and licensing fees they pay to foreign companies.

Business friendly is the same as jobs friendly, and jobs mean income and opportunity for the common man.  Oh, and revenue for government, whether that revenue is justified or not.

And

Markus Meinzer, an analyst with the Tax Justice Network, has already begun calling Latvia a “Luxembourg for the poor.”

What’s the downside of that, exactly?

Of course, officialdom objects to these things.

[T]he banking systems in both [Ireland and Cyprus] have collapsed—and both have been forced to seek emergency aid money from EU bailout funds.

Never mind that it was the knowledge of the existence of bailouts—at taxpayer expense, to boot—and too much regulation that led to the collapses.  Businesses that can be sure of bailout face no consequence from their decisions, and so no risk—and so make dumb, over-extensive moves.  Over-regulation compounds the problem by artificially constraining the range of moves allowed—constraints that the market can apply much more efficiently, much more broadly, much more flexibly, and much more promptly.

And

…money with shady origins keeps appearing.  In April 2012, the United Nations Security Council determined that Latvia’s Parex Bank (which has since changed its name to Reverta) assisted military officers from the Ivory Coast in circumventing international sanctions.

Of course, this has nothing to do with tax law or being business friendly.  Enforcing existing law against money laundering would handle this nicely.  To the extent the specific charge is true (if the UN says it, it’s automatically open to question), that’s a violation of such existing law; Latvia’s tax treatments are wholly irrelevant.

The Euro Zone needs a whole lot more tax havens within it—perhaps as many as 17 more.  It’s not the governments’ money, after all, and the governments for the most part don’t need it as much as the people do.

Government Favoritism

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…city government style.

The Washington, DC, Council of the District of Columbia has voted to impose a minimum wage of $12.50 on all retailers in the District that do $1 billion or more in annual corporate sales.  That’s corporate sales, not just the sales that occur within the District.

Oh, and unionized corporations are excused from the minimum wage hike; they still get to pay the original minimum wage of $8.25.

The law was sold as filling a need to pay a livable wage to the good citizens of DC.  But union shops are specifically excused from having to pay a livable wage?

How does any of that work, exactly?

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc, the target of this law, has three Walmart stores under construction in DC, with plans for building three more.  They’ve said the new wage requirement throws into a cocked hat their economic analysis of their expansion, and they’ve canceled the three new stores and are exploring how to stop construction on the other three.  In the face of such a blatantly uneven law, they’ve had no choice.

And DC won’t get the 1,800 jobs those six stores were going to bring to six blighted neighborhoods.

The Wages of Competition

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Samsung Electronics Co’s  weaker-than-expected second-quarter earnings guidance and tepid results from HTC Corp show that high-end smartphone makers are starting to see growth taper as competition bites and cheaper devices flood the market.

And

High smartphone penetration rates in developed markets such as North America and Western Europe are leading to slower growth for high-end models…. Though premium models are most profitable for mobile-phone makers in general, they may have to look to cheaper models for growth, targeting emerging markets where growth potentials remain high….

And

Apple is widely expected to launch a lower-cost version of its iPhone later this year….  While Samsung and HTC have long made midrange phones, both are expected to bend their premium line down to more price-conscious customers.

In a free market, a monopoly’s barriers to entry always will be overcome by entrepreneurs, the monopoly’s pricing power will be broken, and the monopoly will lose market share to newer, better, cheaper rivals.

In a free market, a product leader’s high prices always will be driven lower through the competitive pressure of new entrants into the leader’s product niche.

You don’t get this competition in a managed economy, whether an openly socialist one, or the social democratic ones of Europe.  Or the regulation-controlled economy that the United States’ one is becoming.

Macroprudential Tools for Economic Flow Control

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Central banks, including the Fed, are trying to narrowly target their manipulation of national economies by using new tools to manipulate economic incentives in particular sectors.

The point of the new tools is to protect the entire financial system and economy, so economists refer to them as macroprudential.  That distinguishes them from microprudential, which describes traditional oversight to assure safety and soundness of individual banks.

However,

The whole idea makes some economists uneasy.
…
The techniques have ignited a debate among central bankers, bank regulators and academics over whether they can do what proponents promise.

Some see “macroprudential” as a euphemism for the largely discredited practice of governments deciding where capital should flow.

They should be uneasy; that’s exactly the effect, whether it’s intentional or not.  Too expensive to put money into this industry, investors and businesses say.  We’ll put our money in that industry, instead.

And create a bubble there instead of here.  Or we’ll put our money into that country instead of this one, they say.

And the net result is to drive inflation in that country instead of this one.  Or, more likely and more insidiously, strengthen an existing tendency toward a bubble or toward inflation, possibly pushing that tendency past a threshold.

But the US government, at least, more broadly than the Fed had already been engaged in macroprudential tools for economic flow control: the Community Reinvestment Act, which was used to pressure banks into making more home loans to poorer credit rated borrowers than the banks thought prudent; tax policy for social engineering, which among other things gives preferential treatment to loans for this purpose but not for that purpose; and so on.  This has gotten even more so since the Panic of 2008: stimulus spending, special loans for particular industries, selective law enforcement where this impacts the economy, etc.

We already know, from all that empirically derived evidence, that targeting this or that sector of the economy not only does not work positively, it exacerbates the economy’s corrections (recessions) when those do (inevitably) occur.

The Fed had at one time a mandate to control price level (inflation) while pushing toward full employment.  It needs to stick to its knitting.  Sure, those are broad-brush goals, but our economy is too complex for any force other than the invisible hand of a free market to control.