De skötsamma får som vanligt betala för de som inte kan sköta sig, lösningen på USAs kreditkortsproblem

Det är skrämmande att så fort en liten minoritet inte kan sköta sig, oavsett om det gäller alkohol, droger, kreditkort skulder, skolgång så drabbas alltid de skötsamma. Det är 90/10 regeln, den verkar vara universell.

Lagstiftaren angriper inte problemet där det hör hemma, dvs försöker ändra de som har ett icke önskvärt beteende. Istället straffar man de 90 % skötsamma med ny hårdare regler som fördyrar och försvårar tillvaron. Inte nog med det notan för dessa nya regler och notan för att hjälpa de icke skötsamma 10 % hamnar på de skötsamma.

Vem är det som borde betala höga avgifter, höga räntor, höga skatter och drabbas av restriktioner? De som förorsaker skada eller de som sköter sig?

Från NY Times: Overhaul Likely for Credit Cards

Banks are expected to look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks, according to bank officials and trade groups.

“It will be a different business,” said Edward L. Yingling, the chief executive of the American Bankers Association, which has been lobbying Congress for more lenient legislation on behalf of the nation’s biggest banks. “Those that manage their credit well will in some degree subsidize those that have credit problems.” [min kursiv]

Tack till  CalculatedRisk

USA vs Europa och Sverige, 2-1

Jag kan rekommendera en mycket bra artikel om synen på USA och EU i allmänhet och Sverige och USA i synnerhet. Många vanföreställningar om Sveriges och Europas förträfflighet gentemot USA ställs helt på sitt huvud.

A narrower Atlantic, Prospect Magazine May 2009

Despite America’s move to the left under Obama, it’s still assumed that Europe and America are fundamentally different—in their economies, societies and values. But this is a myth

Den visar att i USA drabbas färre av kriminalitet än i Sverige. I USA tar den överst 1 % av inkomsttagarna 14 % av inkomsterna mot 6 % i Sverige i gengäld äger den översta procenten i Sverige dubbelt så mycket av den disponibla förmögen som den översta procenten i USA.

USA har färre fattiga än Sverige om vi bortser från relativ fattigdom. När det sedan kommer till generell fattigdom och sociala problem så ligger USA bättre till än nästan alla europeiska länder, om du räknar bort den etniska underklassen i USA, de svarta. Men i Europa och Sverige har vi nu fått en likadan etnisk underklass som uppvisar exakt samma mönster som i USA. Om 10-20 år kommer Sverige och sannolikt många länder inom EU ha mycket värre problem med sin etniska underklass än USA.

Amerikansk sjukvård täcker inte alla men amerikaner har trots det bättre överlevnad när det gäller svår a sjukdomar än Sverige lung-, kolon-, bröst- och prostatacancer. När det gäller diabetes, hjärt- och kärlsjukdomar samt stroke ligger USA i ett EU genomsnitt.

Amerikanska pensioner är lägre än inom EU men den disponibla inkomsten för pensionärer är högre i USA än Sverige. USA lägger mer pengar än Sverige på utbildning, mer än alla utvecklade länder, USA har en lägre andel privatskolor än i Europa. Amerikaner läser och köper mer böcker. Har ett mycket mer välutvecklat allmänt bibliotekssystem.

När det gäller miljön så kör amerikaner mindre bil per capita än svenskar, USA sänkte sina utsläpp av koldioxid mellan 1990 och 2002 med 17 %. USAs Nationalparker skyddar dubbelt så stora områden som Nationalparker i Sverige. När det gäller religion är amerikanerna mer troende, de gör mer i kyrkan men européer men européer tror mer på övernaturliga fenomen, parapsykologi, reinkarnation mm än amerikaner även om man räknar in tron på en gud.

Amerikaner är mycket mer vetenskapsinriktade än européer trots att det finns kreationister i USA. Fler amerikaner än européer litar på staten.

Så de européer som älskar att hata det kapitalistisk USA och se det som en avbild bör nog titta djupare in i sitt eget öga. USA är i mångt och mycket bättre än Europa och i vissa fall tom. bättre än Sverige.

Fysikens lagar gäller för en teknikoptimist men defintivt för en teknikpessimist

Jag är en obotlig teknikoptimist som alltid har hävdat att mänsklighetens problem kan fixa med applikation av bättre vetande och användandet av vetenskapligt beprövade metoder.

Jag har även trott att problemen kring global uppvärmning skulle kunna komma att fixas om vi kunde utveckla mer effektiva solpaneler, effektivare kärnkraft och hitta en lösning så att fusions kraften kunde bli kommersiell. Jag glömde helt bort fysikens lagar.

Tim Harford, The Undercover Economist var inne på samma linje på sin blogg Switch to renewable energy? If only it were that simple. Han har läst en ny bok som kan laddas ner,  Sustainable Energy – Without the Hot Air:

Professor MacKay makes this point very simply by sidestepping the economics altogether. Technological progress and economic growth loosen the corset of cost-benefit analysis, but not the laws of physics. No matter how cheap and efficient solar collectors become, there is only so much solar power available per square metre of land. Hydroelectric energy is constrained by the quantity of rainfall and the height of reservoirs above sea level. The most perfectly designed windmill is
limited by the energy of the wind. It would barely be possible to make the numbers add up even if renewable energy generators were free.

Att förutse affärstransaktioner och politik

Jag hittade denna mycket intressanta video  via  inslag.se om Bruce Bueno de Mesquitas spelteoretiska modeller som med 90 % träffsäkerhet kan förutsäga komplexa politiska scenarier. Se denna mycket intressanta video där han presenterar sin anayls teknik. Inslag.se gör en mycket intresseant iaktagelse om denna video:

En festlig detalj är Bueno de Mesquitas beskrivning av den kunskap han får ut av sina intervjuer med policyexperter. ”It’s basic information that experts agree on and that you can even find in The Economist.”

Jupp.

Jag kan inte annat än hålla med men tycker det är synd att en sådan begåvad forskare kastar bort sin tid på att predicera politik när han istället borde ägna tiden åt att förbättra avtals- och  kontraktsförhandlingar.

Har USA slutat vara en rättstat, givit upp ”Rule of Law”?

Jag har alltid varit en mycket stor beundrare av den amerikanska konstitutionen, dess enkla tydlighet, men messt av allt har jag beundrat amerikanernas hårdnackade vidhållande av rättstatsprincipen, ”Rule of Law”, även när det kostat på. När massmärdare släpps fria pga av teknikaliteter, när kommunister och nazister tillåts predika revolution och massmord och när den den ekonomisk krisen är som störts har kontraktsrätten och avtalsrätten inte tubbats på.

Nu verkar rättstatsprincipen, ”Rule of Law” eroderas med full fart. Det började med George W Bush och hans massiva ingrepp i privatlivet, mot konstitutionen stridande telefonavlyssning, användandet av extremt hårda förhörsmetoder, inspärraandet av sk.   ”enemy combattants”  utan prövning.

Nu kommer spiken i kistan. Obamas administrationens uppförande i Chrysler konkursen har nu lett till ett åsidosättande av den mest fundamentala grunden i affärslivet, upprätthållande av ingångna avtal och åsidosättande av borgenärers prioritets ordning i en konkurs.

Todd Zwycki skriver i Wall Street Journal och detta gör mig mycket ledsen och extremt bekymrad. Rent av skräckslagen:

Chrysler and the Rule of Law-The Founders put the contracts clause in the Constitution for a reason.

The rule of law, not of men — an ideal tracing back to the ancient Greeks and well-known to our Founding Fathers — is the animating principle of the American experiment. While the rest of the world in 1787 was governed by the whims of kings and dukes, the U.S. Constitution was established to circumscribe arbitrary government power. It would do so by establishing clear rules, equally applied to the powerful and the weak.

Fleecing lenders to pay off politically powerful interests, or governmental threats to reputation and business from a failure to toe a political line? We might expect this behavior from a Hugo Chávez. But it would never happen here, right?

Until Chrysler.

The value of the rule of law is not merely a matter of economic efficiency. It also provides a bulwark against arbitrary governmental action taken at the behest of politically influential interests at the expense of the politically unpopular. The government’s threats and bare-knuckle tactics set an ominous precedent for the treatment of those considered insufficiently responsive to its desires. Certainly, holdout Chrysler creditors report that they felt little confidence that the White House would stop at informal strong-arming.

And what if the next time it is a politically unpopular business — such as a pharmaceutical company — that’s on the brink? Might the government force it to surrender a patent to get the White House’s agreement to get financing for the bankruptcy plan?

Tack till Volokh conspiracy

Uppdatering 15 maj, 2009Volokh conspiracy skriver

The Obama administration appears to have reminded Chrysler about the cost of accepting government bailouts: with federal funds comes federal control.

A report this week in Advertising Age said that Chrysler wanted to spend $134 million in advertising over the nine-week duration of its bankruptcy. But Mr. Obama’s auto-industry task force sliced that figure in half.

Att förnya socialliberalismen? Del1. Ett utkast till ett neosocialliberalt manifesto

Terry Michaels syn på hur en socialliberal borde tänka i dagens samhälle.

Han skriver:

What’s the story behind today’s Democrat brand? I continue to be a partisan Democrat, but I’m not sure. I believe it’s something like: “Government isn’t all that bad; look at Social Security and Head Start. America isn’t always that good; we try to impose our will on a multi-cultural world. The marketplace is full of bad guys who need to be restrained, including their greed-driven political speech. Hey, we’re religious, too. And, not just equal opportunity for all, but re-distributive social justice entitlements for special “minority” victims, because, except for me and my friends, racism endures.”

Terry Michaels undrar då över vd som hittils varit gällande inom socialliberismen:

1. Centrist

2. Old time religion , offered by the economic policy reactionaries overly represented in the party’s congressional wing, preaches a return to an “old-time religion,” “complete-the-New-Deal” ideology.

That Fifties and Sixties battle cry might have made sense once. But it is mis-matched for today’s smarter voters, who want to make decisions from their homes, or at least their states.

Social welfare left-liberals often peddle a kind of middle-class neo-populism, a William Jennings Bryan appeal to folks with SUVs and satellite TV, with selective-memory imagery of the good life of the 1950s (again, see Bob Samuelson’s book.)

Sometimes they push class warfare, a version of which the ultra-ambitious John Edwards now seems to be selling as the self-appointed trial lawyer for the underclass.

Old-time religion seems to move (or at least receive lip service from) the Dupont Circle, K Street and AFL-CIO Washington-based wings of the base, but usually leaves the hinterland center cold. And the Beltway-based lefties have lost their nerve on non-interventionist foreign policy, so afraid of that “soft-on-defense” Cold War scarecrow the DLC neo-cons have been peddling for two decades that they allowed Bush’s elective war to commence without engaging any real debate.

So what is Terry Micheals suggestion. Become Jeffersionain liberals or as he in his libertarian Democrat Manifesto says;

We need a new story. Here’s a rough cut, a little more than can fit on a bumper sticker, assembled around the three fundamental issue frames of politics – economic, social, and foreign policy:

“Government: assure liberty by staying as far away as possible from our bank accounts, our bedrooms, and our bodies. Spread pluralistic democracy and free markets by example, understanding that neither can be planted by force on political real estate lacking indigenous cultivators for their growth. Restore the moral authority of mid-20th century “civil rights,” fashioning public policy around individuals, not tribal identity groups.”

En blind leder en annan blind- Obamas Keynesianer mot Bush Keynesianer

De nästan ofattbara problem vi befinner oss i nu orsakades av Keynesianska och neoklassikak makroekonomiska teorier. Tron att genom att bara ratta spakarna och mikrojustera, knepa och kåpa i ekonomin kan du smidigt kyla en överhettad ekonomi eller hetta upp en recession. Båda neoklassisk och keynesianska ekonomiska teorin används som bas en rationell individ. Den neoklassiska tron på Homo Economicus på individuell nivå och den keynesianska, numera också beteendeekonomisk teori, tror på en rationell politiker, byråkrat, illusionen jag kallar Homo Illuminatus. Homo Illuminatus är en individ som är fri från alla fördomar, felaktiga beteenden och som känner alla människor tankar och känslor.

I själva verket är vi alla individer och vi alla beter oss, och om en individ inte beter sig rationellt hur kan dåen individ som är politiker, byråkrat förutsättas uppträda mer rationellt? Det är en illusion att som den neoklassisk teorin tro att individer alltid bete sig rationellt, men ett ännu större misstag är antagandet att individer alltid beter sig irrationellt. Individer i själva verket beter sig individer rationellt för det mesta, irrationellt beteende är sällsynt men det finns och orsakar problem.

Vi har sedan andra världskriget gång på gång fått känna av de svåra bieffekter som kommer av att försöka manipulera anpassa ekonomin.det har oftast lett till motsatsen till den avsedda effekten. Överhettning en redan het ekonomi och nedkylning av en redan deprimerad ekonomi. Faktum är att i USA sedan Bill Clinton har haft två typer av keynesianer, konservativa och progressiva. Det konservativa Keynesianerna har sänkt skatterna för att stimulera ekonomin, men inte minskat utgifterna samtidigt, George W. Bush. De progressiva Keynesianerna, som vi har nu, fokuserar på de offentliga utgifterna men har inget fokus på att sänka framtida underskott. De arbetar även med skattehöjningar.

Vi bevittnar Obamas nykeynesianer och beteendeekonomiska teoretiker kritiserar och hånar neoklassisk nationalekonomi. De uppfattar att den neoklassiska teorin har fört oss hit men vägrar att inse att den keynesianska ideologin är lika eller kanske ännu mer skyldig. Istället för ett moratorium på maipulation och fingrade i ekonomin har de återigen har för avsikt att införa den Upplyste Planeraren, den Homo Illuminatus. Hayek har redan förklarat att är omöjligt, att det inte finns någon enskild individ, byråkrat eller politiker som känner till alla preferenser över tiden för alla individer i alla samhällen.

The strange research of John Bates Clarck medal winner Emmanuel Saez

The case for higher taxes is based on the (false) assumption that the top tax payers in the US have more than doubled their share of income since 1980. The statistics is from the research of John Bates Clarck medal winner Emmanuel Saez with Thomas Piketty.

He has made has made his research available to the general public in his article Striking it Richer:The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States. He claims that the top tax payers income has gone up dramatically, doubled. However if you scrutinize his research as Alan Reynolds has in WSJ article The Top 1%…of What? You find that the effect is imaginary, only an effect of changes in tax law, the actual underlying income is the same since 1980. Instead of having corporate income business owners changed the status of the corporations from C-corp to S-corp status. income reported as corporate income no was reported as individual income, however the total sum of income is the same. See Piketty/Saez rebuttal, extremely weak in my opinion.

To try to legitimize income redistribution with research is  in my opinion necessary but to try to do it with misleading research is dishonest, it is much more fair to use pure ideological arguments of class warfare. But unfortunately the American people does not support income redistribution unless you can substantiate it.

If Saez won the John Bates Clarck medal for this, his research one must wonder what the prize committee was thinking? Political maybe or just populist as was the Nobel Committees selection of Paul Krugman, a brilliant economist but a populist and biased partisan propagandist.

US the Sweden of the 1970s? A rematch between responsible liberalism vs social democracy

In the US we are now seeing the debate that Sweden had in the 1970’s. Should you have a Big Government, statist state or should you keep the system as it is but put into place legislative frameworks for the citizens to make their own choices within these frameworks or should you take away choice altogether because a small minority cannot make rational choices?

I am extremely disturbed that the US seems to be going the way of Sweden in the1970’s. It led to disaster from a point of economic power and prosperity but also for individual liberty. In Sweden there used to be a saying that Sweden have a capitalist economic system for corporations but have socialized the individual. It was before 1990 a near perfect corporatist state.

Up until 1968 the political opposition in Sweden, mainly Folkpartiet, the Responsible Liberal Party, had been in fierce opposition to socializing polices. However the SocialDemocrats changed tactics and abandoned pure socialism to what Nobel Laureate and party leader Bertil Ohlin called ”central directive and regulation socialism”.

During the student and worker uprising of  1968, intellectuals became infatuated with Maoism,  all parties en Sweden became radicalized and the opposition against socializing policies and corporatism stopped. Sweden’s decline started, taxes were raised by 50 % overnight and the Public Sector tripled in size.

Sweden was in 1970 the world’s third strongest economy and declined to the 17th, our welfare system could not be sustained because of lower growth the lead to lower tax revenues than calculated. Entrepreneurs and venture capital had been run out of the country because of the extreme, punitive tax system and the constant attention of the Swedish Tax Authorities. In fact tax evasion and avoidance had become a national pastime for all and the Shadow Economy sector prospered.  

By the 90’s and small and medium sized business owners had all but been eradicated, as result Sweden still has least small and medium sized business owners in all of the developed countries (OECD). Not only that in Sweden because of the corporatist polices of strong interaction between labor and  large corporations and government not one single new job has been created in the Private Sector, all new jobs were created in the Public Sector.

So should the US steer the course that Sweden did 1970-1992 semi-socialized statism, massive intervention  as well as high taxes or should we adopt polices Sweden applied after its banking sectors financial meltdown in 1990-1992 and that lead to the Swedish model being the envy of most US liberals i.e. tax cuts, deregulation and abandoning the corporatist model of cooperation between labor and large corporations ?

From Bertil Ohlin’s Memoirs “Socialistisk skordetid kom bort”(”The Socialists crop was never harvested”) 1940-1951 Bonniers 1975.

Bertil Ohlin was not only a party leader but also a professor of Economics as well as Nobel Laureate. He won the prize for the Heckscher-Ohlin theorem.. He was the founder of The Stockholm School of Economics a forerunner to Keynes.

In particular, responsible liberalism saw it as a danger to the liberty of its citizens the development of the growth of an increasingly centralized political power. The SocialDemocrats [Swedish Big Government statists,] were always adherents of such practices that increased the political influence.

Only when a very strong case could be presented could we in Folkpartiet [Swedish Responsible liberal party] agree to such measures. We preferred makings laws that put a framework in place and with full freedom within this
framework. The SocialDemocrats always wanted to increase what they called “the Societies influence” and minimized the individual’s right to self-determination both in private as well as in business life. Instead of the old ”nationalization policy, pure socialism” we now saw on the horizon the beginnings of a new ”central directive and regulation socialism” [In the US called Statism] emerging which, however – it must be stressed – was strongly opposed by us and the other parties in opposition and only developed very slowly after1948.

Responsible Liberalism?

I moved to the US from Sweden. I became interested in what US liberalism stood for. As soon as I understood I shook my head in disbelief. In my opinion they had totally lost their way. They talked and acted like old school Big Government statists at best and socialists at worst. US Libertarians with a capitol L was not even close to classic liberals, the likes of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.

Then I found the Responsible Liberalism of former California Governor Pat Brown. In his inaugural speech presented January 5, 1959 he put into words exactly how I felt what a progressive classic liberalism was about. It was not class, racial or gender divisive politics of the poststructuralist left but pragmatism and realism, politics of vision and hope:

The essence of liberalism is a genuine concern and deep respect for all the people. Not monuments or institutions or associations, but people. Not one race, or one creed, or one nationality, but all the people. When people come first and special privilege is scorned, government is truly liberal.

In a liberal atmosphere, the individual stands secure against invasion of his dignity or intrusion on his conscience. He has the right to require justice and fair play, the right to demand protection from economic abuse and selfish threats to his security. At the same time, government must not, in naïve good intention, stifle his initiative or smother his growth. Men must indeed have freedom to breathe the air of self-respect.

A liberal program must also be a responsible program, a reasonable, rational, realistic program. We must know how much it will cost and where the money is coming from. Benefits must be measured against burdens. A program which pampers the people or threatens our solvency is as irresponsible as the one which ignores a vital need. But we will always remember that there is a difference between responsibility and timidity, and we are resolved to be governed more by our hopes than by our fears.