Category Archives: Government Spending

Email exchange on balanced budget multiplier

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>   
>   (email exchange)
>   
>   Hi Warren, I’m a bit confused over one point. MEMMT says that only govt deficits (or an
>   external sector like foreign) can inject NFAs into nongovt. So if govt runs a balanced
>   budget over the years the NFAs left to nongovt will net to 0.
>   

Yes.

>   
>   Now take Keynes’ consumption function and the multiplier. Govt invests 100$ into Mr A in
>   nongovt. Mr A will spend on average 75% of that, and will save the rest.
>   

Yes.

>   
>   The next guy will spend 75% of the $ he got from A and save, and so on along an ever
>   dwindling series of consumption expenditures that will add to say 300$, ie the multiplier
>   effect.
>   

Ok. This presumes there is unemployment/unmet savings desires. And the additional 100$ of nfa will have resulted in higher levels of employment that produced the 300$ of incremental output.

>   
>   So, say that govt runs a balance budget, ie spends 1 billion and will tax 1 billion, however
>   the multiplier effect will have created in the aggregate a lot more $ out of the original
>   govt injection of 1 billion.
>   

If it all reduces savings desires unemployment will fall and output will rise. The presumption is that the 1 billion tax cuts spending by less than 1 billion, while the spending is the full 1 billion. That is, savings desires fell as those who were taxed spent from savings (or borrowed to spend, same thing).

And just as the initial govt spending is spent and respent as you describe, the tax also cuts spending which further cuts spending etc.

The presumption of the idea that an equal spending and tax will lower unemployment must be based on one of two things.

First, somehow those taxed simply reduce their savings and their savings desires. This is certainly possible.

The second is first illustrated at the extreme.

As govt employment grows the number of people left in the private sector falls, and we don’t measure unemployment as a % of the private sector work force. So if half the workforce in Italy is in the public sector, and unemployment is 10%, that means unemployment is some 20% of the available private sector labor.

So if, for example, govt employment was 90% of the labor force, it would be impossible for reported unemployment to be over 10%.

With 100% public employees there is 0 unemployment as defined.

I discussed this back in 2008 and I need to repeat it in a post thanks!

>   
>   And here is where I lose it. Will this mean that even in a balance budget regime in reality
>   govt is never able to tax as many FAs as the multiplier will have created in nongovt before
>   taxation is due? Is this disproving MEMMT and prove instead that a balance budget can
>   still create NFAs for nongovt? Thx P.
>   

Not at all.

ME MMT fully explains the workings of the condition described.

;)

Added link to Bill Mitchell’s dissertation on the subject here.

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Monti Proposes More Than EU13.5 Billion in New Tax Breaks, Cuts

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The headline is promising but the details don’t read at all well.

Italy needs aggregate demand/spending/sales/ouput/employment. Cutting corporate taxes does precious little of that, especially over 5 years beginning 2014. And tax cuts ‘paid for’ by spending cuts tend to reduce demand overall as well, as does fighting tax evasion. And there’s nothing he can do about bond yields.

And I doubt his opposition is offering anything better.

As the gag stated, the food was bad and the portions were small.

Monti Proposes More Than EU13.5 Billion in New Tax Breaks, Cuts

January 27 (Bloomberg) — Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti said that he plans tax breaks and reductions worth more than EU13b if hes elected to a second term in February. Monti spoke in an interview on La7 Television. Monti proposes cutting corporate taxes after 2014;Monti sees EU11.5b reduction in corporate taxes over 5-yr period; Monti says he plans tax breaks for first-home owners, families with children worth EU2b; Monti says he will revamp IMU property tax from this year; Monti says he will try to cut income tax rates after 2014; Tax cuts can be paid for through cutting spending, fightingtax evasion and keeping bond yields down.

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Draghi Says Conditions Considerably More Favorable Than Last Yr

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As previously discussed, looking like deficits high enough for stability and even modest growth, albeit with output and employment at tragically low levels, if they don’t further tighten fiscally.

It didn’t have be this way. They could have increased deficits pro actively vs via austerity.

Also, their ‘automatic fiscal stabilizers’ are very strong and, even if all is left alone, will tend to keep any recovery muted.

EU Headlines
Draghi Says Conditions Considerably More Favorable Than Last Yr
Merkel Takes Swipe at Yen
German Business Sentiment Rose More Than Forecast in January
Ifo Business Climate Index Rises
German Cooperative Banks See Growth Exceeding Government Outlook
France needs time to overtun rampant jobless rate: minister
Monti Says Monte Paschi Bailout Hinges on Bank of Italy
Italian PM under fire over bank crisis
Spain tries to peel back business rules

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CSRCs Guo Says Intervention in Stock Market Necessary: Xinhua

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Not that a stock market is ‘necessary’. And not to forget that a 30% corporate income tax, as in the US, is at least as good as owning 30% of all taxable enterprises. If govt, want’s a larger share of corporate profits, it can just hike the tax rather than buy the stock.

If govt cares about stock prices, the question has to be why. If it’s because lower stock prices cause people to spend and consume less out of fear, you’d think cutting taxes on people working for a living would be more attractive than the govt buying stocks? If it’s due to an attack on a fixed fx currency, like HK, I’d rather float the currency than buy stocks.

CSRCs Guo Says Intervention in Stock Market Necessary

January 22 (Bloomberg) — China Securities Regulatory Commission Chairman Guo Shuqing said at the national securities
and futures supervision meeting that its necessary to intervene in Chinas stock market at key moments, the official Xinhua
News Agency reports.

* Chinas stock market is not mature, Guo was cited as saying

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BOJ Adopts Abes 2% Target in Commitment to Ending Deflation

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This of course fundamentally does nothing of consequence for aggregate demand or the level of the currency. The extra deficit spending due to start in April is what will help a bit.

BOJ Adopts Abes 2% Target in Commitment to Ending Deflation

By Toru Fujioka and Masahiro Hidaka

January 22 (Bloomberg) — The Bank of Japan set a 2 percent inflation target and shifted to Federal Reserve-style open-ended asset purchases in its strongest commitment yet to ending two decades of deflation.

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Friday update

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So just like Japan, as soon as the economy starts doing a bit better we hike taxes. Still too early to say how the FICA hike will impact sales and profits, but it will. And spending cuts are on the way, though they may be delayed.

Not to forget the debt ceiling thing about to be kicked 3 months down the road as it stands guard to ensure ‘meaningful’ spending cuts.

Oil firm, but can still go either way. WTI converging to Brent indicates the seaway pipeline capacity increase may be enough to drain the surplus at pad 2, bringing wti up to brent, but too soon to tell for sure. And looks like the demand for saudi crude is dropping some, but not enough to dislodge them from being
swing producer/price setter.

Looks to me like the whole world is becoming ‘more competitive’ so it all cancels out. Bad for people, ok for stocks, with profits running at record highs as a % of GDP. Meaning the federal deficit has to be that much higher, all else equal, to fill the output gap.

The yen keeps going down. Looking more and more to me it’s off the radar screen intervention by the likes of insurance co’s, pension funds, and other quasi govt agencies got the note to buy fx denominated bonds in size. Not sure how far they will take it, but they have a serious herd instinct that has formed serious multi year bubbles in the past.

Europe? They fixed the solvency issue, sort of, and now just have the economy thing to deal with. Problem is the ECB grants solvency only with conditionality. Good luck to them.

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Platinum Coin Idea Is Rejected by White House

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This is far more problematic than markets realize.

The President had a choice. The debt ceiling thing expresses ‘the will of Congress’ where Congress makes laws for the executive branch to execute. The President has also sworn to uphold the Constitution which says the President has to pay the nation’s bills. The President has so far decided to abide by the will of Congress.

And, in any case, the Republican leadership says the fight is going to be about modifying the already in place sequestrations.

So seems it’s now ‘advantage Republicans’ on the spending cuts issue.

The economy hitting the debt ceiling and going cold turkey to a balanced budget is a far more catastrophic event than even going over the full cliff would have been, as it disables the ‘automatic fiscal stabilizers’ and instead triggers a pro cyclical downward spiral in output and employment. That is, when the $25 billion/week spending cuts kick in and the economy slows, the falling tax revenues mean spending has to be cut more, nor can total spending on unemployment ‘automatically’ go up, etc.

And don’t forget about the Jan 1 FICA hike now beginning to kick in which also seems markets are not discounting.

Platinum Coin Idea Is Rejected by White House

January 12 (Reuters) — The White House on Wednesday sees little profit in the notion of minting $1 trillion platinum coin as an escape hatch to avoid a debt default if Congress balks at raising the U.S. debt limit.

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Japan should buy the platinum coin?

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Abe revived this panel. Lots of cross pressures as to whether to increase deficit spending or not. If not, they could continue to be the land of the rising yen, as ‘monetary policy’ short of actual fx purchases doesn’t cut it.

As previously discussed, while reported reserves have remained flat since the last announced intervention, there are signs actual fx reserves have been rising from what is functionally intervention not counted as official intervention, but I can’t yet say for sure.

And note that the purchase of a US Treasury $1 trillion platinum coin would weaken the yen and put off the US debt ceiling issue…

;)

Govt Starts Talks On Fiscal Reform At Revived Key Policy Panel

TOKYO (Kyodo) — A revived Japanese government economic policy panel started discussions Wednesday on how to rehabilitate the nation’s finances in the longer term, with the government’s plan to issue more debt to fund a stimulus package stirring concern over the nation’s fiscal health.

The meeting of the Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy was the first in three and a half years. The panel had played a leading role in putting together economic and fiscal policy under the government of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of the Liberal Democratic Party.

During Wednesday’s meeting of the panel revived by Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who took office on Dec. 26, participants exchanged views on an emergency economic stimulus package slated to be approved by the Cabinet on Friday.

The government led by the LDP, which returned to power in the Dec. 16 general election after three years in opposition, also began discussions on mapping out the basic policy for an initial budget for the next fiscal year starting April and medium-to-long term economic and fiscal policy blueprints.

Abe’s government is considering approving an emergency stimulus package of over 20 trillion yen ($228.7 billion) to boost Japan’s slowing export-reliant economy, and compiling a 13.1 trillion yen extra budget for the current fiscal year to finance it, sources close to the matter said Tuesday.

To cover the shortfall in revenue needed to pay for the supplementary budget, Tokyo is making arrangements to issue an additional 5.2 trillion yen in construction bonds for fiscal 2012, the sources said.

The move has focused attention on how the LDP-led government will show a commitment to restoring Japan’s precarious fiscal health, the worst among major developed countries.

If fears intensify that progress on fiscal reform has stalled, long-term interest rates could spike as investors become reluctant to buy government bonds due to fears of default, dampening corporate and private investment and dragging down the broader economy, some analysts have warned.

The previous government led by the Democratic Party of Japan had set as its fiscal reform target halving Japan’s primary balance deficit — total expenditures in excess of total revenues, excluding interest payments on debt — by the end of fiscal 2015.

Abe is eager to finalize by June the basic fiscal policy, which could include a plan to put Japan on a path toward fiscal restoration, the sources said.

The Council on Economic and Fiscal Policy, first established in 2001 but put on ice after the DPJ took power in 2009, would function as the “control tower” of Japan’s macroeconomic policies, Abe has said.

The Bank of Japan governor is requested to join the council’s meetings along with business leaders and academics, with Abe saying he wants to deepen communication with the central bank chief there.

Abe has pledged to beat the nation’s chronic deflation, urging the BOJ to aggressively ease monetary policy until a 2 percent inflation rate is achieved.

Financial market participants said they are paying attention to whether Abe will put additional pressure on current BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa to do more during the meeting late Wednesday, ahead of the BOJ’s Policy Board meeting on Jan. 21 and 22, at which the central bank is expected to introduce a 2 percent inflation target, as requested by Abe.

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China Loan Share at Record Low Shows Financing Risks

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Lending by state banks there- shelling out funds without much concern about getting them back- is functionally a lot like deficit spending here, and both probably have similarly high multiples as well.

So while ‘normal’ deficit spending is reportedly going up in China, temper that by this kind of decrease in ‘shadow’ deficit spending.

China Loan Share at Record Low Shows Financing Risks

January 9 (Bloomberg) — Chinas bank loans as a share of funding in the economy may have fallen to a record low, highlighting the growth of alternative financing channels that have prompted warnings of rising credit risks.

New yuan loans probably dropped 14 percent last month from a year earlier, according to the median projection in a Bloomberg News survey of 37 analysts ahead of data due by Jan. 15. That would give bank lending a 55 percent share of aggregatefinancing for 2012, based on UBS AG estimates, the least in figures dating to 2002.

The decline underscores the waning ability of official loan data to capture the scale of debt in the worlds second-largest economy as borrowers and investors turn to less-regulated, higher-return shadow-banking products. The Peoples Bank ofChina is putting greater emphasis on aggregate financing and the International Monetary Fund says the growth of nonbank credit poses new challenges to financial stability.

Chinas economic performance in 2013 will be significantly affected by how seriously Chinese regulators are going to treat non-bank financing, said Shi Lei, a Beijing- based analyst with broker Founder Securities Co., who has provided research advice to Chinas securities regulator. While a hands-off approach will help the economy, a crackdown would be really bad for growth.

The PBOC lending figures are among December data in the coming days that will show whether an economic rebound that began in September picked up or slowed last month after a seven- quarter growth slowdown. Trade figures due tomorrow may show exports rose at a faster pace and a Jan. 11 report may indicate inflation accelerated.

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