Santa Growth is not coming to town…

Santa Growth is not coming to town… 

 

By JM Hamilton (11-15-2020)

 

We can all rejoice that vaccines appear to be on the way.  Vaccines that Western governments will, likely, overpay Big Pharma for, and will, probably, save countless lives. The plague is certainly nothing to celebrate, but we should pause a moment and tip our collective hat to COVID.  Namely, for all the truths the disease has revealed, about the state of the American economy and the political process.  Without COVID, the United States might have traveled on down the neoliberal path…  never questioning, semi-comatose, somnolent, morbidly obese, sleepwalking, and narcotized on American exceptionalism, consumerism, & social media.

 

Without COVID, would Trump have won a second term?

 

As you chew on that, please note, the pandemic highlights and presents an opportunity to question the false narratives Americans are fed every day.  Among the aforementioned revelations: tax cuts for the rich lead to economic stagnation and catastrophic national debt, just as exorbitant corporate debt crushes companies & industries; the trickledown myth (fiscal & monetary) is just that, a fable that nobody credible believes in anymore; and it doesn’t matter how many tens of thousands of Main Street businesses fail, if you pump enough taxpayer money into debt and stock markets, the markets will completely divorce themselves from reality. 

 

But perhaps the greatest fiction to be laid out for burial, by COVID, is the story that the economic growth fairy - for today’s purposes, Santa Growth - will slide down the nation’s chimney and save the United States, laissez faire economics, and eradicate nearly $30 trillion in national debt. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The financial news media - and the fresh and saltwater schools of economics – are all in agreement, growth is the path forward, in: eliminating inequality, addressing stagnant wages, as a solution for economic malaise, and in addressing catastrophic national debt. 

 

Even before the plague came along, the US had enjoyed economic growth in, nearly, every year, from Reagan forward.  (Albeit, growth – from 2000 forward, arguably - was significantly mitigated by colossal national debt, endless austerity, budget draining wars w/out end, Wall Street bailouts, & rent seeking utilities that have come to dominate the US economy.)  And yet, during the last forty years of economic growth, wages stagnated, the number of millionaires & billionaires soared, the national debt shot to the moon, and social mobility has been all but eliminated.  Most detrimentally, the economy has become financialized… thanks largely, to Federal Reserve policy. 

 

Moreover, the insistence upon growth - as an economic panacea for what ails America, indeed, The West - holds out false hope and doubles down on the failure that led us to a divided and impoverished nation.  Relying on economic growth, to solve the nation’s ills, is little more than an avoidance strategy, relied upon by the privileged … essentially, kicking the can down the road.  Lancing & removing growth dogma that infects America’s economy, academia, and C-suites is the key to moving beyond late-stage neoliberalism and adopting an economy that works for everyone. 

 

For in the ultimate twist of economic fate, it is Wall Street’s & Corporate C-Suites’ myopic view of growth – quarter to quarter – that leads to greatly diminished aggregate growth for the nation.  Specifically, what happens when an industry doesn’t see growth?  Well, the elites would have us believe that’s cause for industry consolidation.  And while M&A may take care of management and ownership concerns, in the short run… when this behavior is engaged in across the entire economy, the ultimate outcome is clearly antigrowth & anti-jobs. (Not unlike multinationals exporting jobs offshore, in favor of cheaper labor, and then dumping foreign manufactured goods on US soil… a single company can get away with it, but when everybody does it, aggregate demand and the economy takes a hit.). 

 

To be clear, M&A, monopoly & monopsony, leads to layoffs, lost jobs, stagnating wages, a significant loss of innovation & opportunity (and diseconomies of scale) … in short, significantly less growth.  Moreover, cartel & monopolies extract taxes or rents from the consumer, that a normally functioning mixed economy – or rational government - would never permit. 

 

This too, crushes growth and opportunity. 

 

The FED enables all this by suppressing interest rates, keeping investors desperate, and making money - for the connected & powerful - nearly free to borrow. All this feeds consolidation, M&A, and paradoxically, an anti-growth outcome (aka a doom loop).  Hence, reinforcing the obvious… that those who sing loudest w/in the cult of growth – the business community, academics, & the neoliberal elites w/in government – are often the very same people, who destroy growth, opportunity, jobs and the economy.  Meanwhile, the national debt soars, commercial debt soars, and entire segments of the economy – see American retail – are all but eliminated. Let’s hear it for GDP, one more time.  No thanks.  

 

Moreover, if possible, is unlimited growth even desirable?  

 

Think about what the cult of growth requires: an ever-growing population, increasingly impoverished by failed neoliberal dogma & the lack of well-paying jobs; an overburdened planet, which – given plague, famine, disease, endless war, and climate change – appears to have reached its limits with humanity; and finally, a captured & subservient US government, perfectly willing to sacrifice half the population, in favor of a handful of oligarchs. In short, unrestrained growth is not only unachievable, but it is also undesirable.

 

So you better not pout, you better not cry… Santa Growth is not coming to town, to save us from our failure to ask hard questions, like why has neoliberalism – and the cult of growth - been such a catastrophic failure for nearly half of all Americans?

 

That alone, should cause Americans to withdraw the cookies, milk, and kick our Santa Growth habit, once and for all.  

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

 

 

 

Mr. Trump’s failed covenant light economy…

Mr. Trump’s failed covenant light economy… 

 

 

Workers across America have taken a powerful hit. As of this month, more than 23 million are receiving unemployment, even as Trump celebrates a “recovery.” As of August, some 12 million had lost employer-based health-care coverage when they lost their jobs. As of Aug. 31, some 98,000 businesses — primarily small businesses — had closed permanently, according to one survey. One in 6 renters are behind on their payments. Moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures delay what will be a flood of expulsions.

 

-        U.S. workers have taken a powerful hit. Any true recovery must include them – Washington Post 

 

 

By JM Hamilton (10-31-2020)

 

 

An article caught my attention in the FT this week with ramifications for the debt market and our highly leveraged US economy, A disturbing new signal from the CDS market.  At issue, CDS (credit default swaps) are insurance contracts that provide coverage for bonds, in the event of default. Like property insurance itself (which covers the difference between the value of the property and any undamaged property, in the event of loss), the CDS covers the differential between the face value of the bond and any recovery value from the bankrupt enterprise. 

 

What we are coming to find out is the recovery value is increasingly less and less, because private equity firms & management -- thanks to a tidal wave of liquidity provided by central banks, and thanks to interest rate suppression provided by central banks – are finding cheap loans in the marketplace for highly distressed businesses (often referred to as zombies).  This last tier of lender is sweeping up assets (that the PE firm or management teams haven’t already pilfered) and leaving bondholders and the enterprises providing CDS out in the cold; that is to say, with little or no recovery value from the bankrupt enterprise. 

 

But the crux of the story is this:  The CDS issuers and bondholders have only themselves to blame, because they are issuing covenant light insurance products (CDS) and covenant light debt.  That is to say, there’s no - or very little - caveats, conditions, or stipulations w/in the bonds, or CDS contracts, that state management can’t steal the collateral (the assets of the enterprise) or run out and offer the assets/collateral to yet another tier of lender.  None.  Of course, all this goes back to our hyper-leveraged economy and the financialization of same…. Where too much money (see comments above on central banks & monetary policy) is chasing too few investment opportunities. It’s also a testament to the ongoing wave of consolidation, M&A, and the monopolization of the global economy… which means fewer businesses and investment opportunities.  (And let’s not forget to stick it to both the bond & CDS underwriters for a complete lack of discipline.) 

 

Again, all fueled by your friendly neighborhood central banker. 

 

Financial instruments, however, aren’t the only areas where we see covenant light practices… and no strings attached giveaways to the business community.   The New York Times ran an interesting piece this week, entitled:  Trump’s Manufacturing Promises Disappoint as Economy Sours.  

 

For me, two key points in the article stand out.  One, after Foxconn failed to build the factory it promised in Wisconsin… it now appears that Foxconn will be denied tax credits, but the State of Wisconsin is still out the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars it sunk into the project.  Meanwhile, it appears that Foxconn will not use the facility for its intended purpose, nor invest capital - or hire – at anywhere near the levels agreed upon.  The much-celebrated Foxconn project – by Trump and former Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker - was a boondoggle from the beginning… w/ Republicans making commitments w/ taxpayer money that would never be offset with equal or greater tax revenue, even under the rosiest of hiring scenarios. 

 

And two, this same article pointed out that the Trump tax cuts were delivered with the idea that America’s business royalty would repatriate jobs and factories back home to America.  But there was no contractual obligation, no covenants in the legislation concerning the tax cuts.  So surprise, surprise… businesses receive a massive tax giveaway, the deficit and the national debt continue to spiral out of control, under POTUS Trump, and the US economy and labor continue to suffer.  Talk about your trillion-dollar looting; talk about failed trickle-down. 

 

Of course, Republicans always claim to be the party of business, and the CEO -in- Chief is no exception.  So why is Trump’s administration mired in failure, particularly in regards bringing home the bacon to America: jobs and opportunity?  Again, much of it goes back to fecklessness in placing caveats, covenants, and taxpayer protections into government deals/laws/legislation with the business community.  And not unlike the covenant light bond and CDS contracts and agreements, Federal and State governments fail – again & again – to protect the United States, American labor, and our economy. 

 

Establishment Dems are equally complicit. 

 

See the gross corruption surrounding the looting and sacking of the PPP program, as well as, the tax giveaways, by and for the connected & the powerful, under the CARES Act ...  allegedly, designed for small and medium sized businesses and workers in distress.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is it just me or is it truly time to turn the tables?  Is it time for elected officials to actually stand up for Americans and the economy… and place serious teeth into agreements/legislation, with real substantive monetary penalties and repercussions for businesses & ownership that fail to deliver on their end of the bargain?  Detractors and naysayers may ask, how can you hold businesses accountable in a globalized world, where M&A and consolidation leave fewer and fewer businesses and jobs?  Where corporations have the power of nation states?  

 

That response, itself, speaks directly to neoliberalism’s failure.

 

But – until the real structural defects of failed neoliberalism are addressed - the correct response is easy enough for any political leadership that actually wants to lead.  To wit, if businesses want access to the world’s biggest economy (what remains of it), then they need to play by America’s rules.  The least of America’s rules should be: what is sold in America is manufactured & serviced in America, from the ground up; a living wage is required for all American labor, starting at $15 an hour; eliminate the gig-economy; and companies will be required to pay at tax rates no less than the highest income tax bracket, based upon EBITDA. 

 

As for those remaining businesses that have not been destroyed by too much leverage, from financial engineering and private equity robber barons, there should be very serious caps placed on the amount of debt that can be piled onto balance sheets.  And if companies & multinationals don’t want to play by the rules, caveats, conditions, and covenants… they no longer get to play in the American economy. 

 

Good luck in totalitarian China. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020

They all fall down…?

They all fall down…?

 

The total amount West Germany ultimately paid to the Kremlin for reunification is unknown, although it's usually estimated at between 50 and 80 billion marks (25-40 billion euros or $31-50 billion). A price, most would say, that was well worth paying.

 

-       How Kohl and Gorbachev sealed the deal on German reunification, DW News

 

 

By JM Hamilton (10-18-2020)

 

On Christmas day, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin, and promptly replaced with the flag of Russia.  As we approach the thirty-year anniversary of the collapse of the Soviet empire, it’s a good time to refresh our memories as to why this superpower collapsed, and exactly, how striking the parallels are in the United States today. 

 

The popular narrative, at that time, is capitalism triumphed over communism, but upon closer inspection, today, the US no longer practices capitalism.  Today, monopolies and utilities – where the means on the production are placed into the hands of a few oligarchs – dominate the American economy, and the 2008 financial crisis and the present pandemic have only accelerated this trend. 

 

U.S. markets are no longer markets, in the traditional sense, but are constantly propped up by Federal Reserve’s (FED) monetary policy.  More specifically, Congress and the FED borrow from the US credit line and send taxpayer money into so-called debt and stock markets, where the transfer of wealth – American style socialism – really takes place (from the 99% into the forever grasping hands of the 1%).  In short, profits are privatized, and losses are socialized… the latter being absorbed by the disenfranchised American taxpayer, via diminished future prospects, austerity, higher taxes, and an economy staggering under a catastrophic debt load.

 

So without further ado, some of the similarities between the conditions and events surrounding the pre & post – Soviet collapse and conditions within the United States, today. 

 

Oligarchical Control:  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, factories and economic assets quickly fell into the hands of oligarchy. Prior to that, these same assets belonged to the Russian people, under the stewardship of the Soviet dictatorship.  Today, in the United States, there is news article after news article on the incredible concentration of wealth, into the hands of a ruling oligarchy. Think the US is a democracy or republic… thanks to campaign finance laws, think again. 

 

A Decrepit and Aged Ruling Body, Impervious to Change:  At the time of Brezhnev’s death, in ’82, the politburo, or Soviet congress, was at a median 70 years of age.  And if you lived through the early 80s, there was a never-ending stream of elderly Soviet leaders, dropping dead w/ great frequency.  Today, in the United States, many within the political class, who stand in for the ruling oligarchy, and keep up the pretense of democracy, are septuagenarians.  The congress today, is one of the oldest on record.  Both ruling bodies – the congress and the politburo - are/were heavily resistant to change.  And in the case of the US, in particular, the congress, all too often, flat out ignores the desires & wishes of the majority of Americans. 

 

National Debt & Banker Rule:  The Soviets and Eastern bloc had racked up considerable debt, owed to Western banks, throughout the eighties.  Much of this debt was unsecured and undercollateralized. And the arms race with Reagan didn’t help matters.  Bankers being bankers, they insisted upon Russian & Eastern bloc austerity, with the public bearing the brunt of reduced government expenditure (see Poland as an example). In fact, one of the key components of German reunification was extensive financial aid and assistance from Western Germany to the Soviet Union, including the cost of repatriating Soviet troops to mother Russia.  The Russian ruble, during this period, was devalued… a common methodology in which nation states deal w/ extraordinary national debt levels, owed to foreign countries.  Of course, today, in the United States, the national debt has grown to extraordinary levels, equal to or greater than annual GDP, and financial crisis are becoming common place w/ greater frequency & severity.  

 

Naturally, the oligarchy and Wall Street advocate austerity at a time of wide-spread unemployment.  In the US, to say that Wall Street banks have considerable sway over the American government, and its fiscal & monetary policies, is an understatement. 

 

Declining living standards, and substance abuse:  In the USSR, by the late eighties, living standards were in decline, and alcoholism and infant mortality were on the rise. In the US today, we can see: the bottom half of society cannot make a $400 emergency payment; wage & wealth inequality can now be characterized as an existential threat; life expectancy is in decline; and underemployment and unemployment are rampant. Moreover, the epidemic of drug and opioid addiction & deaths has not decreased, during the plague.  In fact, American overdose deaths are resurgent. 

 

Consolidation & Privatization Schemes:  With the collapse of the Soviet Union, industry & factories – along w/ natural resources - fell into the hands of oligarchy.  Russian billionaires were made as Soviet era assets were unable to perform in the global economy.  In some instances, little regard was given to displaced workers – see Eastern Germany – and tremendous economic hardship ensued.  State assets were privatized, often to the connected & powerful, and at fire sale prices (aka kopeks on the ruble). This should sound very familiar to Americans.  In the US, connected & powerful business interests have turned privatization into a revenue stream provided by the US taxpayer.  The merits of privatization – oft-cited cost or expense mitigation – are specious at best and rarely, if ever, play out.  Simultaneously, Wall Street and Private Equity oligarchs loot the credit lines of private sector takeover targets and destroy entire industries, leaving the US economy dominated by cartel or monopoly.

 

Empire:  Both the US and the USSR are, and were, well known for their empires and gross foreign policy overreach.  And ironically enough, both countries were (and are, in the case of the US) bogged down in Afghanistan of all places…. The graveyard of empires. Empires require extravagant resources, military expenditure, at the sacrifice of the public; and we know defense/offense spending is a key source of fraud and outright theft (of limited state resources).  Today, defense spending makes up half of US discretionary fiscal spending, at a time that US unemployment is extraordinary, the aforementioned living standards are in decline, w/ women, children, and minorities bearing the brunt of economic hardship & misery. In short, a costly US empire still exists at a time that Americans can least afford a neocon foreign policy.  

 

 

 

 

 

Is the US following the Soviet Union, indeed the arc of all empires, into decline, decay and collapse?   It would certainly appear so.  The US seems incapable of reform, the government has been co-opted and betrayed by a ruling oligarchy, as well as, campaign finance laws that invite, and make legal, unprecedented corruption. 

 

A dynamic capitalism and mixed economy (see FDR and the New Deal), with requisite competition (the checks & balances of capitalism) … have been traded in for financial engineering, Federal Reserve/taxpayer backstopped markets, monopoly, and the exploitation of foreign labor.  All at the cost of declining American standards of living and mass poverty.  Moreover, it appears that president after president are incapable of extricating the US from endless foreign wars, as the national debt, homelessness, economic decline & misery are all on the rise.

 

If we look at the range of economies and political institutions, not as linear, but as a circle, we can quickly see that there is little difference between a Soviet dictatorship, or a post-Soviet dictatorship… And America’s dictatorship of a monied elite.  That there is little difference from a single party state and a highly corrupt two-party state.  In terms of the economy, well… oligarchy is oligarchy.  Isn’t it?  Whether it’s the post-Soviet economy or the US economy, both are characterized by lack of dynamism & stagnation.  Lest we forget, monopoly is the twin of communism, where the means of production are placed into the hands of a single producer; and both – communism & monopoly – are sanctioned by the state. 

 

We can also see that bankers will always insist upon welfare for themselves and austerity for everyone else.  And an atrophied and decaying ruling elite will, generally, place themselves first, until it’s too late. 

 

Copyright JM Hamilton Publishing 2020