Nassim Nicholas Taleb doesn’t pussyfoot around in his New York Times op-ed arguing that we should “End Bonuses for Bankers”:
Instead, it’s time for a fundamental reform: Any person who works for a company that, regardless of its current financial health, would require a taxpayer-financed bailout if it failed should not get a bonus, ever. In fact, all pay at systemically important financial institutions — big banks, but also some insurance companies and even huge hedge funds — should be strictly regulated.
Critics like the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators decry the bonus system for its lack of fairness and its contribution to widening inequality. But the greater problem is that it provides an incentive to take risks. The asymmetric nature of the bonus (an incentive for success without a corresponding disincentive for failure) causes hidden risks to accumulate in the financial system and become a catalyst for disaster. This violates the fundamental rules of capitalism; Adam Smith himself was wary of the effect of limiting liability, a bedrock principle of the modern corporation.
Bonuses are particularly dangerous because they invite bankers to game the system by hiding the risks of rare and hard-to-predict but consequential blow-ups, which I have called “black swan” events.
But my favorite part of the op-ed is the Times paraphrased pull-quote (pull-paraphrase?):
What Hammurabi would have done to restrict Wall Street risk-taking.
Taleb would get Babylonian on them:
Nearly 4,000 years ago, Hammurabi’s code specified this: “If a builder builds a house for a man and does not make its construction firm, and the house which he has built collapses and causes the death of the owner of the house, that builder shall be put to death.”
This was simply the best risk-management rule ever. The Babylonians understood that the builder will always know more about the risks than the client, and can hide fragilities and improve his profitability by cutting corners — in, say, the foundation. The builder can also fool the inspector; the person hiding risk has a large informational advantage over the one who has to find it.
— The Wall Street Journal editorial page looks for a sliver of common ground with Occupy Wall Street and finds it in opposition to corporate welfare:
The Occupy Wall Street protesters aren’t good at articulating what they want, but one of their demands is “end corporate welfare.” Well, welcome aboard. Some of us have been fighting crony capitalism for decades, and it’s good to have new allies if liberals have awakened to the dangers of the corporate welfare state.
Corporate welfare is the offer of special favors—cash grants, loans, guarantees, bailouts and special tax breaks—to specific industries or firms. The government doesn’t track the overall cost of these programs, but in 2008 the Cato Institute made an attempt and came up with $92 billion for fiscal 2006, which is more than the U.S. government spends on homeland security.
That annual cost may have doubled to $200 billion in this new era of industry bailouts and subsidies. According to the House Budget Committee, the 2009 stimulus bill alone contained more than $80 billion in “clean energy” subsidies, and tens of billions more went for the auto bailout and cash for clunkers, as well as aid for the mortgage industry through programs to refinance or buy up toxic loans.
I’m guessing the proposed alliance fell apart in the third paragraph where the WSJ puts clean energy in scare quotes.
— Josh Bivens of the liberal Economic Policy Institute takes issue with much of Adam Davidson’s debut column in The New York Times Magazine.
He covers a lot of ground, so my list of disagreements is going to be scattershot, but here’s a quick taxonomy. First, I don’t buy his characterizations about what is generally agreed upon and what is seriously contested among economists. Second, he really undersells how well studied the concept of providing Keynesian-style fiscal support to ailing economies is. Finally, he doesn’t help readers in their attempt to make an evidence-based decision on what is easily the most important economics question today: Should Congress and the Administration be spending more to help lower today’s 9 percent unemployment rate?
"— The Wall Street Journal editorial page looks for a sliver of common ground with Occupy Wall Street and finds it in opposition to corporate welfare:"
Oh yuck. Nonononono.
First off, what ows is against is the fricken WS. The people who crashed the economy, walked away from the wreckage with taxpayer funded bonuses, have continued to profit from the interest spread made possible by 0% borrowing from the fed which wallstreet lends at 1-2% to the treasury, and have not been held criminally responsible for decades of fraud - those are the people Occupy Wall Street are against. We're against the deregulated finance sector and the collusion between public and private institutions which encourages the market to take risks and pocket the gain while the public is compelled to socialize the losses.
We're against the quiet coup.
That ain't what the Wall Street Journal's editorial section is against, no sir. And Cato? They're on record claiming that the poor, most-profitable companies that have ever existed shouldn't be faulted for taking their generous subsidies, the net balance of government contributions to the enterprise being negative and all. The Wall Street Journal wants to talk about other people's welfare, how very teabagger of them.
What OWS wants is a government that is responsive to people's needs and the three things people need now are jobs, infrastructure repair, and clean energy. But because of damned conservatives like Larry Summers, who hate infrastructure and think Milton Freidman is a hero, those policies are currently politically impossible.
Which is why people have hit the streets. No, there is no common ground to be had with right wing rags like the wsj editorial page who attempt to take our legitimate issues with the misdirection of government and turn it into an argument for small government.
Maybe if the wsj editorial page spent more time demanding accountability from the real villains instead of throwing shots to their "freddie and Fannie did it" base we could find some common ground, but for now it is impossible to reconcile OWS demands for effective democratic government with the wsj's 1% serving, anti-government agenda.
Screw them in the ear.
#1 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 8 Nov 2011 at 11:21 PM
Cato pooh poohing the idea eliminating oil industry subsidies will affect anything:
http://townhall.com/columnists/elisabethmeinecke/2011/04/28/eliminating_oil_subsidies_may_not_affect_prices_at_pump_either_way
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=1249
#2 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 8 Nov 2011 at 11:29 PM
Nope, ows has nothing to gain from seeking common ground from people like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmjdl4RdIBU
Why? For one, they're jerks. For two, they're no-nothing jerks. For three, they're no-nothing jerks who stop listening to you once you start hatin' on their precious failed markets.
They have no concept of societal counter balance, that in a democratic society the government acts as a representative of the citizen and a counter weight to the immense societal power of business and money. They believe that all the problems with rampant capitalism can be solved with more rampant capitalism.
There's no help to be found here.
#3 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 9 Nov 2011 at 03:20 AM
It's hard to tell whose political-economy theory is less insane: Noam Chomsky's or Thimbles and Ryan's. But at least Chomsky correctly identifies the State as power-source (monopoly, corrupter, prime malefactor).
#4 Posted by Dan A., CJR on Wed 9 Nov 2011 at 01:13 PM
Ah Yes... The Ole' Commie "People Are Too Stupid To Look After Themselves" Argument with a Babylonian twist..
This is the dilemma..
Are we going to be free society where people make choices and take care of themselves?
Or are we going to be a draconian society like ancient Babylon, where a dictator rules with an iron fist?
One has to wonder how many Babylonian house builders quit the business after Hammurabi's edict. What happened to the average price of a new home? What happened to the market for materials? How many tradesmen lost jobs? What was the cost to the economy of this law?
We only get the commie side of the equation from CJR, of course. The side that has the government stepping in to screw with the market for the good of consumers.... But we don't get any discussion of the cost of this interference. In Commie/CJR Land, screwing with markets doesn't cost anything.
One thing's for sure... Hammurabi sure as Hell got one thing right. He criminalized the conduct he wouldn't tolerate. You notice that he didn't create a "Babylonian Fair Housing Commission"... Or a "Babylonian House Inspection Committee". He made it simple and effective.
If you have to screw with the free market... Then this is the way you do it - criminalize - don't regulate.
#5 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Wed 9 Nov 2011 at 03:46 PM
Dan and company, which is it? Is the government acting as a socialist dictatorship impeding business, destroying jobs, and tampering with the naturally emerging efficiency of free market or is it in service to a corrupt market?
If the government is opposing crime, then we shouldn't be labeling that activity socialist and calling for a teaparty revolution, right?
If the government isn't opposing crime, then we should be doing something about that, right? We should be demanding better, right?
The only alternative to that is that you don't believe in crime within the markets, which is naive and foolish given the last 6 years of evidence.
Do you believe that the laws which protect consumers, investors, and labor are supposed to be enforced? If so then by who? If not, then what do you suggest we do about the thieves and liars infesting the system?
"Are we going to be free society where people make choices and take care of themselves?"
"When a gang is serial raping people along the streets at night, are we going to be a free society that does nothing about it but 'make choices like don't go out at night' and 'take care of ourselves'?"
Thanks, but there is already a City of Lost Girls in that libertarian paradise, Mexico. We don't need more of the same in the US.
How about instead we handle the crimes and help the victims.
And instead of Hammurabi, why not go with William Black: jail the banksters, stop foreclosures, jobs now.
http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2011/11/bill-black-jobs-now-stop-foreclosures.html
Oh yeah, I forgot. Losers mortgages and moral hazard. Teabaggers and wall street hate other people's welfare and universal laws. Socialism.
When they stop taking socialism for the rich and stop forcing policies that lead to trickle up societies that are economically unstable (due to their reliance on middle class credit to keep economic momentum while the cut middle class paychecks) then maybe I'll give them a moment of hearing.
Until then, save the cartoons comedy guys.
#6 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 9 Nov 2011 at 05:50 PM
And yeah, on the topic of Adam Davidson, it was already established on cjr that he was part of the bank insiders, village wisdom knows best circle from is hacky sack interview with Elizabeth Warren.
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/so_thats_why_the_press_wont_co_1.php
"ADAM DAVIDSON: What it feels to me is what you are missing is that — I think we put aside your pet issues. We put them aside. We put them aside until this crisis is over.
ELIZABETH WARREN: The cr— What you’re saying makes no sense. Now come on. [interpolate Davidson sputtering and attempting to interrupt throughout.] It makes no sense. On an emergency basis, on one day, one week, one month, there’s no doubt in my mind we’ve got to step in, we’ve got to make sure we have a functioning banking system. I think I’ve said that like nine times now. Of course we’ve got to have a functioning banking system.
DAVIDSON: Wait a minute. I want to make you go further. I want to make you madder before I —
ELIZABETH WARREN: No no no. [Davidson snickers] We’re now at what — we’re now seven, eight months into this. And it’s the second part of what you said. We can’t do anything about the American family until this crisis is over? This crisis will not be over until the American family begins to recover. [More Davidson sputtering.] This crisis does not exist independently —
DAVIDSON: That’s your crisis.
ELIZABETH WARREN: No it is not my crisis! That is America’s crisis! If people cannot pay their credit card bills [Davidson tries to interrupt] if they cannot pay their mortgages —
DAVIDSON: But you are not in the mainstream of views on this issue. You are not —
ELIZABETH WARREN: What, if they can’t pay their credit card bills the banks are gonna do fine? Who are you looking at?...
DAVIDSON: The American families are not — These issues of crucial, the essential need for credit intermediation are as close to accepted principles among every serious thinker on this topic. The view that the American family, that you hold very powerfully, is fully under assault and that there is — and we can get into that — that is not accepted broad wisdom. I talk to a lot a lot a lot of left, right, center, neutral economists [and] you are the only person I’ve talked to in a year of covering this crisis who has a view that we have two equally acute crises: a financial crisis and a household debt crisis that is equally acute in the same kind of way. I literally don’t know who else I can talk to support that view. I literally don’t know anyone other than you who has that view, and you are the person [snicker] who went to Congress to oversee it and you are presenting a very, very narrow view to the American people.
ELIZABETH WARREN: I’m sorry. That is not a narrow view. What you are saying is that it is the broad view to think only about trying to save the banks [Davidson sputters] and say “Hey! the American economy will recover at some point and we’ll worry about the families [Davidson talking over].” I think that is the narrow view and I think I have the broad view. The broad view is that these two things are connected to each other. And the notion that you can save the banking system while the American economy goes down the tubes is just foolish."
This kind of thing isn't new for Adam. He's not into helping the American family nor the American unemployed as an economic strategy.
"Save the banks, save the world", has been his thing for a long time.
#7 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Wed 9 Nov 2011 at 06:26 PM
Enforce the law. That's all I want, enforce the bloody law.
"It is unclear whether Judge Rakoff will allow the bank to resolve this case under its current settlement terms. On Wednesday, the judge criticized the $95 million penalty against the bank, pointing out that the S.E.C. estimated investors’ total losses on the mortgage deal at $700 million.
“So the net effect of this is that you’re only returning a small fraction of what the investors lost, yes?” Judge Rakoff asked the S.E.C. lawyer.
Later in the hearing, the judge teased Brad S. Karp, the lawyer for Citigroup, about the penalty amount.
“I won’t be cute and ask what percentage of Citigroup’s net worth is $95 million because I do not have a microscope with me.”"
#8 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Thu 10 Nov 2011 at 10:34 PM