Category Archives: Op-ed

What Do Companies Do with Their Political Spending?

Posted on January 20, 2012 by | 13 Comments

By James Kwak

Whatever they’re doing, it doesn’t seem to be good for shareholders. That’s one conclusion of a new paper by John Coates, a Harvard law professor, which I discuss in today’s Atlantic column (which originally misdated the Citizens United decision, thanks to some faulty proof-reading by me). Coates compares firm valuations with levels of lobbying and contributions by corporate PACs and finds that, outside of heavily regulated industries where everyone lobbies heavily, political activity is associated with lower firm value—implying that it’s more like a CEO perk than like a good investment from the shareholder perspective.

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Can We Afford Medicare?

Posted on December 20, 2011 by | 32 Comments

By James Kwak

The conventional wisdom, repeated endlessly by the so-called serious people, is that we can’t afford traditional Medicare and hence it has to be radically overhauled (see Ryan-Wyden for the latest round). But I’ve never seen a convincing argument for why we can’t afford traditional Medicare. Yes, costs are rising as a share of GDP. But in principle, to make the case that we have to reform the program, you would have to argue that revenues can’t rise enough to keep pace—which in most cases, just shows that you don’t want revenues to rise enough.

More specifically, you have to know how big the Medicare deficit is and how fast it is rising. By my calculations, relying mainly on the 2011 Medicare Trustee’s report, the deficit was 1.7% of GDP in 2010 and will be 3.0% of GDP in 2040. So the argument that we can’t afford traditional Medicare relies on the proposition that this 1.3% of GDP is the straw that will break America’s fiscal back. Needless to say, this is nonsense, especially since other tax revenues not related to Medicare will be rising over the same time period, at least under current law. For all the details and sources, see my latest Atlantic column.

Medicare has its problems. But we have choices.

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Posted in Debt, Op-ed

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What Good Is the SEC?

Posted on December 14, 2011 by | 33 Comments

By James Kwak

This week’s Atlantic column is my somewhat belated response to Judge Jed Rakoff’s latest SEC takedown, this time rejecting a proposed settlement with Citigroup over a CDO-squared that the bank’s structuring desk created solely so that its trading desk could short it. I think Rakoff has identified the heart of the issue (the SEC’s settlements are unlikely to change bank behavior, so what’s the point?) but he’s really pointing to a problem that someone else is going to have to fix: we need either a stronger SEC or stronger laws. I’d like to see an aggressive, powerful SEC that can deter banks from breaking the law, but we don’t have one now.

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Who Wants Tax Cuts?

Posted on November 2, 2011 by | 68 Comments

By James Kwak

Yesterday I wrote an Atlantic column about Republican presidential candidates’ fondness for tax plans that transfer massive amounts of money from the poor to the rich. The main question, to my mind, is why people like Herman Cain and Rick Perry talk about transferring massive amounts of money to the rich when polls show that even a majority of Republicans think the rich should pay more in taxes.

Many of the readers here could probably  have written that column themselves, but it does have a wonderful picture of Cain and Perry in all their well-dressed glory.

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The Bush Tax Cuts and the 99 Percent

Posted on October 20, 2011 by | 83 Comments

By James Kwak

I forgot to alert you to my latest Atlantic column, which went up on Monday. To my mind, Occupy Wall Street is a protest movement, and a valuable one, and the often-stated criticism that they should have concrete demands is kind of silly. (See Frank Pasquale’s response, point 5.) I have spent a fair amount of time reading the 99 Percent tumblr, however, and I think the kind of policies that would help the people who describe themselves there are pretty obvious. This is Mike Konczal’s summary:

“Upon reflection, it is very obvious where the problems are.  There’s no universal health care to handle the randomness of poor health.  There’s no free higher education to allow people to develop their skills outside the logic and relations of indentured servitude. Our bankruptcy code has been rewritten by the top 1% when instead, it needs to be a defense against their need to shove inequality-driven debt at populations. And finally, there’s no basic income guaranteed to each citizen to keep poverty and poor circumstances at bay.”

But in my opinion, the preliminary step to getting rich (and reasonably comfortable) people to pay for a better social safety net is to let the Bush tax cuts expire, as I argue in the column. Most importantly, it’s the only inequality-reducing policy I can think of that has any chance of happening in the next year—simply because it only requires doing nothing. How much would it reduce inequality? That’s just the reverse of what the tax cuts did in the first place. (If you can’t read the table, click on it for a larger version.)

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Baseline Scenario Goes Glossy

Posted on October 9, 2011 by | 18 Comments

By James Kwak

Simon and I wrote an article for the November issue of Vanity Fair about—well, about a lot of things. It’s about the eighteenth-century rivalry between Great Britain and France, the lessons of the American Revolutionary War, the Hamilton-Jefferson debates (again), and the War of 1812. It’s also about present-day fiscal policy and budgetary politics. The main question we take up is what the Founding Fathers (from the Constitutional Convention through their involvement in the War of 1812) thought about a strong central government, the national debt, and the taxes necessary to pay for them, and what that means for today. All that in less than 3,000 words, so there isn’t a lot of room for all the details.

You can read the article online here.

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Posted in Debt, Op-ed

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The Bad Old Days

Posted on October 4, 2011 by | 52 Comments

By James Kwak

There was a time when the main purpose of this blog was to explain just how some government policy or other official action was designed to benefit some large bank under the cover of the public interest. In a bit of nostalgia, I wrote this week’s Atlantic column on the Freddie Mac–Bank of America story reported on by Gretchen Morgenson. It’s clear that Bank of America got a sweetheart deal from Freddie. The question is why. Did Freddie Mac’s people, some of the most knowledgeable people in the country when it comes to mortgages, not realize they were giving away money? (Hint: Probably not.) Did FHFA examiners, some more of the most knowledgeable people in the country when it comes to mortgages, not realize that Freddie was giving money away? (Hint: See above.)

It’s amazing that after three full years of our government trying to give Bank of America money at every possible opportunity, it’s still a basket case. Now it’s charging people $5 per month to use their debit cards. Yes, this is a predictable response to new Federal Reserve regulations limiting debit card fees. But it’s easily avoidable: just find another bank. (Neither of mine charges me debit card fees.) Not every bank out there is still trying to pay for the Countrywide acquisition.

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Citizens United and Corporate Political Spending

Posted on September 13, 2011 by | 51 Comments

By James Kwak

Today’s Atlantic column is about corporate political spending in the wake of Citizens United and what, if anything, can be done about it. A group of corporate and securities law professors has petitioned the SEC to write rules requiring companies to disclose their political spending, just like they have to disclose their executive compensation today. As usual, I’m not too optimistic about what disclosure can achieve, especially disclosure in SEC filings or proxy statements: who reads those things, anyway? But it’s better than nothing, and with the current makeup of the Supreme Court, nothing is just about what we’ve got now.

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Steve Jobs and Me

Posted on September 1, 2011 by | 30 Comments

By James Kwak

I took a short break from fiscal and monetary policy to write an Atlantic column about Steve Jobs’s retirement and what it means for the eternal debate over whether and when founder CEOs should be replaced by experienced outsiders. Along the way, I read some interesting papers on the relationship between founder CEOs and stock market returns or company valuations.

I should clarify that I’m no Apple fanboy. I use a MacBook Pro, which I consider almost a necessity given how much time I spend with my computer and the abominable state of Windows. But I don’t like the “my way or the highway approach” when it comes to hardware; I wish it had a Backspace key and a deeper keyboard, among other things.

I understand that controlling the hardware ensures a more consistent user experience and less customer dissatisfaction, but allowing hardware manufacturers to compete certainly has its advantages. Look at Android, for example: I use an Android phone, and even if the iPhone is still the best phone for the median customer (a highly debatable point), the proliferation of Android models means that for most people, there is an Android phone that is a better fit. Although I was an early iPad adopter, I’m generally disappointed with it. It’s great for playing Plants vs. Zombies, checking the weather, or watching a TV episode, but it’s too slow and the browser is too weak to do anything serious. And the fact that you can’t swap out the default Apple keyboard (as far as I know) is a classic example of the problem with the Apple approach: the thing doesn’t even have arrow keys (yes, I know how to use the magnifying glass), and every Android keyboard does a better job with special characters.

Still, there’s no question Steve Jobs is a genius, and nothing like the empty suits who parade through the Times‘s Corner Office column who talk about nothing but hiring, motivation, and teamwork.

Update: Sorry, I meant to say Delete key, not Backspace key.

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Tax Loopholes and the French Revolution

Posted on August 8, 2011 by | 37 Comments

By James Kwak

Today’s Atlantic column is about one of my favorite topics: the French Revolution. Actually, it’s mainly about tax expenditures and how traditional Republicans should want to eliminate them. Unfortunately, there are no traditional Republicans left, and Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge makes clear that you can’t eliminate tax expenditures unless you use all the revenue to lower tax rates below where George W. Bush put them.

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Understanding the Budget Deficits

Posted on July 25, 2011 by | 34 Comments

By James Kwak

Today’s Atlantic column is a follow-up to last week’s on the size-of-government fallacy. In the column, I break down the projected 2021 deficit into three components: Social Security, Medicare, and Everything Else. (It’s important to use 2021, or some year out there, because most of the current spike in deficits will go away as the economy recovers.) I wanted to explain here how I came up with the numbers and talk a bit more about this approach.

Continue reading →

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The Size-of-Government Fallacy

Posted on July 18, 2011 by | 18 Comments

By James Kwak

You hear all the time that the government must get smaller. John Boehner said it the day after the elections: “We’re going to continue and renew our efforts for a smaller, less costly and more accountable government.” Barack Obama agreed in part earlier this week: “We have agreed to a series of spending cuts that will make the government leaner, meaner, more effective, more efficient, and give taxpayers a greater bang for their buck.” And a large majority of Americans agree in the abstract (while simultaneously opposing any significant spending cuts).

Conservatives like to point to high levels of federal spending—23.8 percent of GDP last year—as evidence that government is too big. But the idea that there is one thing called “government”—and that you can measure it by looking at total spending—makes no sense. Worse yet, it can lead to fundamentally misguided policy decisions.

That’s the opening of a column I wrote for The Atlantic’s online business section. I’m trying out writing an occasional column for them. Today’s is about the idea that the total volume of government outlays or receipts can tell you anything worth knowing about the size of government — and the damage that is being done by people who fetishize the total spending number.

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The Politics of Financial Reform

Posted on April 28, 2010 by | 26 Comments

By James Kwak

The June issue of The American Prospect includes a section on financial reform that is already available online. Our contribution is on the way the financial sector has used its time-honored techniques to block and water down meaningful reform over the past year. There are also articles by many of the usual suspects, including Elizabeth Warren, Michael Greenberger, Rob Johnson, and Nomi Prins.

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The Other Battle

Posted on April 14, 2010 by | 8 Comments

By James Kwak

One battle in Washington — the one that has been in the news this week — is over resolution authority and the supposed “bailout fund” attacked by Mitch McConnell. Another battle will be over the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, which Republicans are likely to try to cripple behind the scenes. While most of the reviewers of 13 Bankers have seized on the call to break up big banks, few have discussed the first part of that chapter, which argues for strong consumer protection. Simon and I wrote an op-ed in The Hill to reiterate the point and warn against some of the tactics opponents may use.

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Low Savings, Bad Investments

Posted on November 11, 2009 by | 56 Comments

The article below first appeared in our Washington Post column yesterday. I’m reproducing it in full here because there is an important correction, thanks to a response by Andrew Biggs. I’ve fixed the mistake and added notes in brackets to show what was fixed. Also, I want to append some additional notes about the data and some issues that didn’t fit into the column.

Recent volatility in the stock market (the S&P 500 Index losing almost 50% of its value between September and March) has led some to question the wisdom of relying on 401(k) and other defined-contribution plans, invested largely in the stock market, for our nation’s retirement security. For example, Time recently ran a cover story by Stephen Gandel entitled “Why It’s Time to Retire the 401(k).”

However, the shortcomings of our current retirement “system” predate the recent fall in the markets, will not be solved by another stock market boom. The problems are more basic: we don’t save enough, and we don’t invest very well.

Continue reading →

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