Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Force Taxpayers to Buy Spanish Bonds is Ludicrous Proposal From Harvard Academic Economics Professor

Interest-Rates / Credit Crisis 2012 Apr 30, 2012 - 12:27 PM GMT

By: Mike_Shedlock

Interest-Rates

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleAs the economic crisis lingers on, the number of ludicrous proposals to deal with the crisis rises every month.

I have lost count by now of preposterous ideas and who made them (does anyone have the complete list?), but a proposal by Harvard Economics professor Martin Feldstein to force taxpayers to buy Spanish bonds surely makes the list of top-five ludicrous proposals.


Martin Feldstein, writing for the Financial Times says Taxpayers must backstop Spain's budget

Spain is rapidly approaching a liquidity impasse. Markets are nervous because it's not clear how the government will finance its budget deficit and the rollover of its maturing bonds. To meet its financing needs, the Spanish government needs the confidence of foreign and domestic investors.

Building investor confidence during this process requires a plan to avoid a Greek-style default.

One part of such a plan is to negotiate access to the European Stability Mechanism, the €700bn fund created to protect member governments from default. But if the refinancing shortfall from private sources is very large, Spain will need to supplement the funds from the ESM.

Raising those additional funds by increasing taxes would push the Spanish economy into a deeper recession and would weaken the supply-side incentives needed to stimulate long-term growth.

An alternative emergency approach would be to mandate, on a temporary basis, bond purchases by Spanish households and businesses. Here's how such a plan might be implemented.

The Spanish government could use the income tax system to levy a temporary "lending surcharge" on individual incomes. In exchange for those surcharge payments, the households would receive an interest-bearing government bond with a maturity of five to 10 years. A similar surcharge could be levied on businesses based on corporate profits or the businesses' value added.

The Spanish government should therefore move quickly to enact such a plan before it is overcome by its current liquidity problems.

Earth to Feldstein

For starters, Martin Feldstein correctly points out that "increasing taxes would push the Spanish economy into a deeper recession".

Unfortunately, Feldstein then left planet Earth with his proposal for "Spain use the income tax system to levy a temporary lending surcharge on individual incomes", as if that would not have precisely the same effect as a tax.

Highway Robbery

Feldstein's proposal would take money out of taxpayers' pockets to feed government programs just as a tax would, yet amusingly he warns against weakening "supply-side incentives needed to stimulate long-term growth".

Feldstein proposes giving taxpayers interest on their forced loans to the government. Let's assume 4%. Under Feldstein's proposal (highway robbery is a more apt description than a tax), taxpayers would have access to at most 4% of their money deposited into the scheme.

Somehow "using the income tax system" to take money away from consumers (with a promise to pay it back later) will not cause a drop in consumption, but a tax would. With that idea, Feldstein left planet Earth for some unknown, academic wonderland, alternate universe.

Unfit to Teach

Precisely why should taxpayers bail out banks that made stupid loans? Feldstein never bothers to say.

Are bondholders never, ever to take a loss?

Feldstein's proposal is so preposterous and so devoid of rudimentary thinking about taxes (by whatever name) that it should be clear that he is unfit to teach.

Mish's Five-Point Alternative Proposal

  1. Spain should plead for emergency funds from the ECB, IMF, EMU, wherever it can get them.
  2. Spain should declare a bank holiday and announce a return to the Spanish Peseta
  3. Spain should issue a statement to the ECB, IMF, EMU to the effect "anyone stupid enough to lend us money deserves to lose it at least two-thirds of it. All debts in Euros will be repaid 1-1 in Pesetas."
  4. Spain should then devalue the Peseta by 65%. Should Europe, the IMF, and EMU threaten sanctions, Spain would counter with a threat of 100% default on all external debt rather than 65% of it.
  5. Spain should lower the VAT, lower corporate income taxes, and make it easier to hire and fire workers.

Point number one is a bit tongue-in-cheek as it is tantamount to purposeful fraud. However, the rest of the points can easily stand on their own merits.

In regards to point number three, Spain can be much more diplomatic in its statement to the ECB, IMF, and EMU, but the bottom line would be the same regardless of how Spain phrases the statement.

Results

  • Spain would immediately be relieved of 65% of its foreign debt obligations.
  • The threat to not pay back any of its external debt if Europe of the IMF retaliates (perhaps coupled with a promise to pay back another 15% if everyone plays exceptionally nice) would prevent retaliation.
  • A lower VAT and lower corporate income taxes would encourage growth
  • At a huge discount to the Euro, Spain would become a tourist mecca
  • Spain's products would be far more competitive on the global economy

Effectively, I propose Spain do what Iceland did. The Icelandic economy is in recovery now, while Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Italy flounder.

In contrast, Feldstein proposes more bailouts of banks by taxpayers, while playing preposterous word games with the definition of "tax".

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Mike Shedlock / Mish is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management . Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.

Visit Sitka Pacific's Account Management Page to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

I do weekly podcasts every Thursday on HoweStreet and a brief 7 minute segment on Saturday on CKNW AM 980 in Vancouver.

When not writing about stocks or the economy I spends a great deal of time on photography and in the garden. I have over 80 magazine and book cover credits. Some of my Wisconsin and gardening images can be seen at MichaelShedlock.com .

© 2012 Mike Shedlock, All Rights Reserved.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in