Gérard Depardieu's letter to the French Prime Minister
Dec 16, 2012
Minable, vous avez dit << minable >>? Comme c’est minable.
Je suis né en 1948, j’ai commencé à travailler à l’âge de 14 ans comme imprimeur, comme manutentionnaire puis comme artiste dramatique. J’ai toujours payé mes taxes et impôts quel qu’en soit le taux sous tous les gouvernements en place.
À aucun moment, je n’ai failli à mes devoirs. Les films historiques auxquels j’ai participé témoignent de mon amour de la France et de son histoire.
Des personnages plus illustres que moi ont été expatriés ou ont quitté notre pays.
Je n’ai malheureusement plus rien à faire ici, mais je continuerai à aimer les Français et ce public avec lequel j’ai partagé tant d’émotions!
Je pars parce que vous considérez que le succès, la création, le talent, en fait, la différence, doivent être sanctionnés.
Je ne demande pas à être approuvé, je pourrais au moins être respecté.
Tous ceux qui ont quitté la France n’ont pas été injuriés comme je le suis.
Je n’ai pas à justifier les raisons de mon choix, qui sont nombreuses et intimes.
Je pars, après avoir payé, en 2012, 85% d’impôt sur mes revenus. Mais je conserve l’esprit de cette France qui était belle et qui, j’espère, le restera.
Je vous rends mon passeport et ma Sécurité sociale, dont je ne me suis jamais servi. Nous n’avons plus la même patrie, je suis un vrai Européen, un citoyen du monde, comme mon père me l’a toujours inculqué.
Je trouve minable l’acharnement de la justice contre mon fils Guillaume jugé par des juges qui l’ont condamné tout gosse à trois ans de prison ferme pour 2 grammes d’héroïne, quand tant d’autres échappaient à la prison pour des faits autrement plus graves.
Je ne jette pas la pierre à tous ceux qui ont du cholestérol, de l’hypertension, du diabète ou trop d’alcool ou ceux qui s’endorment sur leur scooter : je suis un des leurs, comme vos chers médias aiment tant à le répéter.
Je n’ai jamais tué personne, je ne pense pas avoir démérité, j’ai payé 145 millions d’euros d’impôts en quarante-cinq ans, je fais travailler 80 personnes dans des entreprises qui ont été créées pour eux et qui sont gérées par eux.
Je ne suis ni à plaindre ni à vanter, mais je refuse le mot "minable".
Qui êtes-vous pour me juger ainsi, je vous le demande monsieur Ayrault, Premier ministre de monsieur Hollande, je vous le demande, qui êtes-vous? Malgré mes excès, mon appétit et mon amour de la vie, je suis un être libre, Monsieur, et je vais rester poli.
Gérard Depardieu
http://www.lejdd.fr/Politique/Actualite/Gerard-Depardieu-Je-rends-mon-passeport-581254
Monday, December 17, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Leszek Balcerowicz on America's mistakes and the better way to heal from a financial crisis
Leszek Balcerowicz: The Anti-Bernanke. By Matthew Kaminski
Leszek Balcerowicz, the man who saved Poland's economy, on America's mistakes and the better way to heal from a financial crisis.The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2012, on page A15
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981504578179310418828782.html
Warsaw
As an economic crisis manager, Leszek Balcerowicz has few peers. When communism fell in Europe, he pioneered "shock therapy" to slay hyperinflation and build a free market. In the late 1990s, he jammed a debt ceiling into his country's constitution, handcuffing future free spenders. When he was central-bank governor from 2001 to 2007, his hard-money policies avoided a credit boom and likely bust.
Poland was the only country in the European Union to avoid recession in 2009 and has been the fastest-growing EU economy since. Mr. Balcerowicz dwells little on this achievement. He sounds too busy in "battle"—his word—against bad policy.
"Most problems are the result of bad politics," he says. "In a democracy, you have lots of pressure groups to expand the state for reasons of money, ideology, etc. Even if they are angels in the government, which is not the case, if there is not a counterbalance in the form of proponents of limited government, then there will be a shift toward more statism and ultimately into stagnation and crisis."
Looking around the world, there is no shortage of questionable policies. A series of bailouts for Greece and others has saved the euro, but who knows for how long. EU leaders closed their summit in Brussels on Friday by deferring hard decisions on entrenching fiscal discipline and pro-growth policies. Across the Atlantic, Washington looks no closer to a "fiscal cliff" deal. And the Federal Reserve on Wednesday made a fourth foray into "quantitative easing" to keep real interest rates low by buying bonds and printing money.
As a former central banker, Mr. Balcerowicz struggles to find the appropriate word for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's latest invention: "Unprecedented," "a complete anathema," "more uncharted waters." He says such "unconventional" measures trap economies in an unvirtuous cycle. Bankers expect lower interest rates to spur growth. When that fails, as in Japan, they have no choice but to stick with easing.
"While the benefits of non-conventional [monetary] policies are short lived, the costs grow with time," he says. "The longer you practice these sorts of policies, the more difficult it is to exit it. Japan is trapped." Anemic Japan is the prime example, but now the U.S., Britain and potentially the European Central Bank are on the same road.
If he were in Mr. Bernanke's shoes, Mr. Balcerowicz says he'd rethink the link between easy money and economic growth. Over time, he says, lower interest rates and money printing presses harm the economy—though not necessarily or primarily through higher inflation.
First, Bernanke-style policies "weaken incentives for politicians to pursue structural reforms, including fiscal reforms," he says. "They can maintain large deficits at low current rates." It indulges the preference of many Western politicians for stimulus spending. It means they don't have to grapple as seriously with difficult choices, say, on Medicare.
Another unappreciated consequence of easy money, according to Mr. Balcerowicz, is the easing of pressure on the private economy to restructure. With low interest rates, large companies "can just refinance their loans," he says. Banks are happy to go along. Adjustments are delayed, markets distorted.
By his reading, the increasingly politicized Fed has in turn warped America's political discourse. The Lehman collapse did help clean up the financial sector, but not the government. Mr. Balcerowicz marvels that federal spending is still much higher than before the crisis, which isn't the case in Europe. "The greatest neglect in the U.S. is fiscal," he says. The dollar lets the U.S. "get a lot of cheap financing to finance bad policies," which is "dangerous to the world and perhaps dangerous to the U.S."
The Fed model is spreading. Earlier this fall, the European Central Bank announced an equally unprecedented plan to buy the bonds of distressed euro-zone countries. The bank, in essence, said it was willing to print any amount of euros to save the single currency.
Mr. Balcerowicz sides with the head of Germany's Bundesbank, the sole dissenter on the ECB board to the bond-buying scheme. He says it violates EU treaties. "And second, when the Fed is printing money, it is not buying bonds of distressed states like California—it's more general, it's spreading it," he says. "The ECB is engaging in regional policy. I don't think you can justify this."
"So they know better," says Mr. Balcerowicz, about the latest fads in central banking. "Risk premiums are too high—according to them! They are above the judgments of the markets. I remember this from socialism: 'We know better!'"
Mr. Balcerowicz, who is 65, was raised in a state-planned Poland. He got a doctorate in economics, worked briefly at the Communist Party's Institute of Marxism-Leninism, and advised the Solidarity trade union before the imposition of martial law in 1981. He came to prominence in 1989 as the father of the "Balcerowicz Plan." Overnight, prices were freed, subsidies were slashed and the zloty currency was made convertible. It was harsh medicine, but the Polish economy recovered faster than more gradual reformers in the old Soviet bloc.
Shock or no, Mr. Balcerowicz remains adamant that fixes are best implemented as quickly as possible. Europe's PIGS—Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain—moved slowly. By contrast, Mr. Balcerowicz offers the BELLs: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
These EU countries went through a credit boom-bust after 2009. Their economies tanked, Latvia's alone by nearly 20% that year. Denied EU bailouts, these governments were forced to adopt harsher measures than Greece. Public spending was slashed, including for government salaries. The adjustment hurt but recovery came by 2010. The BELL GDP growth curves are V-shaped. The PIGS decline was less steep, but prolonged and worse over time.
The systemic changes in the BELLs took a while to work, yet Mr. Balcerowicz says the radical approach has another, short-run benefit. He calls it the "confidence effect." When markets saw governments implement the reforms, their borrowing costs dropped fast, while the yields for the PIGS kept rising.
Greece focused on raising taxes, putting off expenditure cuts. They got it backward, says Mr. Balcerowicz. "If you reduce through reform current spending, which is too excessive, you are far more likely to be successful with fiscal consolidation than if you increase taxes, which are already too high."
He adds: "Somehow the impression for many people is that increasing taxes is correct and reducing spending is incorrect. It is ideologically loaded." This applies in Greece, most of Europe and the current debate in the U.S.
During his various stints in government in Poland, the name Balcerowicz was often a curse word. In the 1990s, he was twice deputy prime minister and led the Freedom Union party. As a pol, his cool and abrasive style won him little love and cost him votes, even as his policies worked. At the central bank, he took lots of political heat for his tight monetary policy and wasn't asked to stay on after his term ended in 2007.
Mr. Balcerowicz admits he was an easy scapegoat. "People tend to personalize reforms. I don't mind. I take responsibility for the reforms I launched." He says he "understands politicians when they give in [on reform], but I do not accept it." It's up to the proponents of the free market to fight for their ideas and make politicians aware of the electoral cost of not reforming.
On bailouts, Mr. Balcerowicz strikes an agnostic note. They can mitigate a crisis—as long as they don't reduce the pressure to reform. The BELL vs. PIGS comparison suggests the bailouts have slowed reform, but he notes recent movement in southern Europe to deregulate labor markets, privatize and cut spending—in other words, serious steps to spur growth.
"Once the euro has been created," Mr. Balcerowicz says, "it's worth keeping it." The single currency is no different than the gold standard, "which worked pretty well," he says. In both cases, member countries have to keep their budget deficits in check and labor markets flexible to stay competitive. Which makes him cautiously optimistic on the euro.
"It's important to remember that six, eight, 10 years ago Germany was like Italy, and it reformed," he says. Before Berlin pushed through an overhaul of the welfare state, Germany was called the "sick man of Europe." "There are no European solutions for the Italians' problem. But there are Italian solutions. Not bailouts, but better policies."
Why do some countries change for the better in a crisis and others don't? Mr. Balcerowicz puts the "popular interpretation of the root causes" of the crisis high on the list.
"There is a lot of intellectual confusion," he says. "For example, the financial crisis has happened in the financial sector. Therefore the reason for the crisis must be something in the financial sector. Sounds logical, but it's not. It's like saying the reason you sneeze through your nose is your nose."
The markets didn't "fail" but were distorted by bad policies. He mentions "too big to fail," the Fed's easy money, Fannie Mae FNMA 0.00% and the housing boom. Those are the hard explanations. "Many people like cheap moralizing," he says. "What a pleasant feeling to condemn greed. It's popular."
"Generally in the West, intellectuals like to blame the markets," he says. "There is a widespread belief that crises occur in capitalism mostly. The word crisis is associated with the word capitalism. While if you look in a comparative way, you see that the largest economic and also human catastrophes happen in non-market systems, when there's a heavy concentration of political power—Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge, many other cases."
Going back to the 19th century, industrializing economies recovered best after a crisis with no or limited intervention. Yet Keynesians continue to insist that only the state can compensate for the flaws of the market, he says.
"This idea that markets tend to fall into self-perpetuating crises and only wise government can extract the country out of this crisis implicitly assumes that you have two kinds of people. Normal people who are operating in the markets, and better people who work for the state. They deny human nature."
Gathering the essays for his new collection, "Discovering Freedom," Mr. Balcerowicz realized that "you don't need to read modern economists" to understand what's happening today. Hume, Smith, Hayek and Tocqueville are all there. He loves Madison's "angels" quote: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
This Polish academic sounds like he might not feel out of place at a U.S. tea party rally. He takes to the idea.
"Their essence is very good. Liberal media try to demonize them, but their instincts are good. Limited government. This is classic. This is James Madison. This is ultra-American! Absolutely."
Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
Leszek Balcerowicz, the man who saved Poland's economy, on America's mistakes and the better way to heal from a financial crisis.The Wall Street Journal, December 15, 2012, on page A15
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323981504578179310418828782.html
Warsaw
As an economic crisis manager, Leszek Balcerowicz has few peers. When communism fell in Europe, he pioneered "shock therapy" to slay hyperinflation and build a free market. In the late 1990s, he jammed a debt ceiling into his country's constitution, handcuffing future free spenders. When he was central-bank governor from 2001 to 2007, his hard-money policies avoided a credit boom and likely bust.
Poland was the only country in the European Union to avoid recession in 2009 and has been the fastest-growing EU economy since. Mr. Balcerowicz dwells little on this achievement. He sounds too busy in "battle"—his word—against bad policy.
"Most problems are the result of bad politics," he says. "In a democracy, you have lots of pressure groups to expand the state for reasons of money, ideology, etc. Even if they are angels in the government, which is not the case, if there is not a counterbalance in the form of proponents of limited government, then there will be a shift toward more statism and ultimately into stagnation and crisis."
Looking around the world, there is no shortage of questionable policies. A series of bailouts for Greece and others has saved the euro, but who knows for how long. EU leaders closed their summit in Brussels on Friday by deferring hard decisions on entrenching fiscal discipline and pro-growth policies. Across the Atlantic, Washington looks no closer to a "fiscal cliff" deal. And the Federal Reserve on Wednesday made a fourth foray into "quantitative easing" to keep real interest rates low by buying bonds and printing money.
As a former central banker, Mr. Balcerowicz struggles to find the appropriate word for Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke's latest invention: "Unprecedented," "a complete anathema," "more uncharted waters." He says such "unconventional" measures trap economies in an unvirtuous cycle. Bankers expect lower interest rates to spur growth. When that fails, as in Japan, they have no choice but to stick with easing.
"While the benefits of non-conventional [monetary] policies are short lived, the costs grow with time," he says. "The longer you practice these sorts of policies, the more difficult it is to exit it. Japan is trapped." Anemic Japan is the prime example, but now the U.S., Britain and potentially the European Central Bank are on the same road.
If he were in Mr. Bernanke's shoes, Mr. Balcerowicz says he'd rethink the link between easy money and economic growth. Over time, he says, lower interest rates and money printing presses harm the economy—though not necessarily or primarily through higher inflation.
First, Bernanke-style policies "weaken incentives for politicians to pursue structural reforms, including fiscal reforms," he says. "They can maintain large deficits at low current rates." It indulges the preference of many Western politicians for stimulus spending. It means they don't have to grapple as seriously with difficult choices, say, on Medicare.
Another unappreciated consequence of easy money, according to Mr. Balcerowicz, is the easing of pressure on the private economy to restructure. With low interest rates, large companies "can just refinance their loans," he says. Banks are happy to go along. Adjustments are delayed, markets distorted.
By his reading, the increasingly politicized Fed has in turn warped America's political discourse. The Lehman collapse did help clean up the financial sector, but not the government. Mr. Balcerowicz marvels that federal spending is still much higher than before the crisis, which isn't the case in Europe. "The greatest neglect in the U.S. is fiscal," he says. The dollar lets the U.S. "get a lot of cheap financing to finance bad policies," which is "dangerous to the world and perhaps dangerous to the U.S."
The Fed model is spreading. Earlier this fall, the European Central Bank announced an equally unprecedented plan to buy the bonds of distressed euro-zone countries. The bank, in essence, said it was willing to print any amount of euros to save the single currency.
Mr. Balcerowicz sides with the head of Germany's Bundesbank, the sole dissenter on the ECB board to the bond-buying scheme. He says it violates EU treaties. "And second, when the Fed is printing money, it is not buying bonds of distressed states like California—it's more general, it's spreading it," he says. "The ECB is engaging in regional policy. I don't think you can justify this."
"So they know better," says Mr. Balcerowicz, about the latest fads in central banking. "Risk premiums are too high—according to them! They are above the judgments of the markets. I remember this from socialism: 'We know better!'"
Mr. Balcerowicz, who is 65, was raised in a state-planned Poland. He got a doctorate in economics, worked briefly at the Communist Party's Institute of Marxism-Leninism, and advised the Solidarity trade union before the imposition of martial law in 1981. He came to prominence in 1989 as the father of the "Balcerowicz Plan." Overnight, prices were freed, subsidies were slashed and the zloty currency was made convertible. It was harsh medicine, but the Polish economy recovered faster than more gradual reformers in the old Soviet bloc.
Shock or no, Mr. Balcerowicz remains adamant that fixes are best implemented as quickly as possible. Europe's PIGS—Portugal, Italy, Greece, Spain—moved slowly. By contrast, Mr. Balcerowicz offers the BELLs: Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
These EU countries went through a credit boom-bust after 2009. Their economies tanked, Latvia's alone by nearly 20% that year. Denied EU bailouts, these governments were forced to adopt harsher measures than Greece. Public spending was slashed, including for government salaries. The adjustment hurt but recovery came by 2010. The BELL GDP growth curves are V-shaped. The PIGS decline was less steep, but prolonged and worse over time.
The systemic changes in the BELLs took a while to work, yet Mr. Balcerowicz says the radical approach has another, short-run benefit. He calls it the "confidence effect." When markets saw governments implement the reforms, their borrowing costs dropped fast, while the yields for the PIGS kept rising.
Greece focused on raising taxes, putting off expenditure cuts. They got it backward, says Mr. Balcerowicz. "If you reduce through reform current spending, which is too excessive, you are far more likely to be successful with fiscal consolidation than if you increase taxes, which are already too high."
He adds: "Somehow the impression for many people is that increasing taxes is correct and reducing spending is incorrect. It is ideologically loaded." This applies in Greece, most of Europe and the current debate in the U.S.
During his various stints in government in Poland, the name Balcerowicz was often a curse word. In the 1990s, he was twice deputy prime minister and led the Freedom Union party. As a pol, his cool and abrasive style won him little love and cost him votes, even as his policies worked. At the central bank, he took lots of political heat for his tight monetary policy and wasn't asked to stay on after his term ended in 2007.
Mr. Balcerowicz admits he was an easy scapegoat. "People tend to personalize reforms. I don't mind. I take responsibility for the reforms I launched." He says he "understands politicians when they give in [on reform], but I do not accept it." It's up to the proponents of the free market to fight for their ideas and make politicians aware of the electoral cost of not reforming.
On bailouts, Mr. Balcerowicz strikes an agnostic note. They can mitigate a crisis—as long as they don't reduce the pressure to reform. The BELL vs. PIGS comparison suggests the bailouts have slowed reform, but he notes recent movement in southern Europe to deregulate labor markets, privatize and cut spending—in other words, serious steps to spur growth.
"Once the euro has been created," Mr. Balcerowicz says, "it's worth keeping it." The single currency is no different than the gold standard, "which worked pretty well," he says. In both cases, member countries have to keep their budget deficits in check and labor markets flexible to stay competitive. Which makes him cautiously optimistic on the euro.
"It's important to remember that six, eight, 10 years ago Germany was like Italy, and it reformed," he says. Before Berlin pushed through an overhaul of the welfare state, Germany was called the "sick man of Europe." "There are no European solutions for the Italians' problem. But there are Italian solutions. Not bailouts, but better policies."
Why do some countries change for the better in a crisis and others don't? Mr. Balcerowicz puts the "popular interpretation of the root causes" of the crisis high on the list.
"There is a lot of intellectual confusion," he says. "For example, the financial crisis has happened in the financial sector. Therefore the reason for the crisis must be something in the financial sector. Sounds logical, but it's not. It's like saying the reason you sneeze through your nose is your nose."
The markets didn't "fail" but were distorted by bad policies. He mentions "too big to fail," the Fed's easy money, Fannie Mae FNMA 0.00% and the housing boom. Those are the hard explanations. "Many people like cheap moralizing," he says. "What a pleasant feeling to condemn greed. It's popular."
"Generally in the West, intellectuals like to blame the markets," he says. "There is a widespread belief that crises occur in capitalism mostly. The word crisis is associated with the word capitalism. While if you look in a comparative way, you see that the largest economic and also human catastrophes happen in non-market systems, when there's a heavy concentration of political power—Stalin, Mao, the Khmer Rouge, many other cases."
Going back to the 19th century, industrializing economies recovered best after a crisis with no or limited intervention. Yet Keynesians continue to insist that only the state can compensate for the flaws of the market, he says.
"This idea that markets tend to fall into self-perpetuating crises and only wise government can extract the country out of this crisis implicitly assumes that you have two kinds of people. Normal people who are operating in the markets, and better people who work for the state. They deny human nature."
Gathering the essays for his new collection, "Discovering Freedom," Mr. Balcerowicz realized that "you don't need to read modern economists" to understand what's happening today. Hume, Smith, Hayek and Tocqueville are all there. He loves Madison's "angels" quote: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary."
This Polish academic sounds like he might not feel out of place at a U.S. tea party rally. He takes to the idea.
"Their essence is very good. Liberal media try to demonize them, but their instincts are good. Limited government. This is classic. This is James Madison. This is ultra-American! Absolutely."
Mr. Kaminski is a member of the Journal's editorial board.
Japan - Major political parties and their pledges
Japan - Major political parties and their pledges
Japan Today, Dec 16, 2012
http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/major-political-parties-and-their-pledges
TOKYO — A dozen political parties and many independents will contest Sunday’s election. Here is a list of major parties and their campaign promises:
The Democratic Party of Japan is a centrist group that has governed Japan since 2009 after ousting long-governing conservatives from power.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda serves as party president.
The DPJ is promising to:
—phase out nuclear power generation by the end of the 2030s.
—promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal, along with a trilateral free trade pact with China and South Korea.
—work with the Bank of Japan to try to end deflation in fiscal 2014.
—boost measures to protect Japanese territory, including islands in disputes with neighbouring nations.
The Liberal Democratic Party is Japan’s main conservative force which ruled the nation almost continuously from 1955 to 2009.
LDP president Shinzo Abe is a hawkish ideologue who was prime minister in 2006-7.
The LDP has pledged to:
—review all nuclear reactors in three years to decide whether to restart them.
—decide within 10 years Japan’s new energy mix, which may or may not include nuclear power generation.
—achieve three-percent nominal economic growth.
—set an inflation target of two percent and may review the Bank of Japan law to push the central bank to take further easing measures.
—strengthen Japan’s administration of islands that China claims.
—expand the Self Defense Forces and rename them National Defense Forces.
—cut more than 2.8 trillion yen in public spending by reducing welfare and government personnel costs.
—conduct a 10-year program to make infrastructure disaster-resistant.
The Japan Restoration Party was launched this year, originally under reformist Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto. It is now headed by controversial ex-governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara.
The JRP was born out of a coalition of small parties with varying ideological backgrounds, and is united in its aim to take power from established parties.
The JRP has promised to:
—draft a new constitution to replace the current one written by the United States shortly after World War II.
—achieve three percent nominal growth and two percent inflation.
—join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks.
—reduce parliamentarians’ salary and seats.
—end reliance on nuclear power.
—aggressively push for decentralisation of power.
The Japan Future Party was launched after the election was called in mid-November. It is headed by Shiga prefecture governor Yukiko Kada on an anti-nuclear platform.
Many pundits say Kada is a figurehead for a party that is really run by veteran backroom deal-maker Ichiro Ozawa.
Among its pledges, the party promises to:
—end nuclear power generation in 10 years.
—stop the consumption tax hike.
—offer special allowances to families with children.
The New Komeito is a party of lay Buddhists that enjoys a narrow but loyal support base. It advocates pacifist policies and social programs to help the vulnerable.
It formed a coalition government with the LDP between 1999 and 2009 and has worked with it in opposition.
The party has pledged to:
—phase out nuclear power “as soon as possible” by not approving plans to build new reactors.
—expand scholarships for high school and college students and freeze fees for pre-schools and nursery schools.
—get Japan out of deflation within two years, achieving nominal 3-4 percent growth.
—boost diplomacy to protect Japanese territory including islands in disputes with neighbouring nations.
—seeks to build a Free Trade Area of Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) through making free trade deals.
© 2012 AFP
Japan Today, Dec 16, 2012
http://www.japantoday.com/category/politics/view/major-political-parties-and-their-pledges
TOKYO — A dozen political parties and many independents will contest Sunday’s election. Here is a list of major parties and their campaign promises:
The Democratic Party of Japan is a centrist group that has governed Japan since 2009 after ousting long-governing conservatives from power.
Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda serves as party president.
The DPJ is promising to:
—phase out nuclear power generation by the end of the 2030s.
—promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade deal, along with a trilateral free trade pact with China and South Korea.
—work with the Bank of Japan to try to end deflation in fiscal 2014.
—boost measures to protect Japanese territory, including islands in disputes with neighbouring nations.
The Liberal Democratic Party is Japan’s main conservative force which ruled the nation almost continuously from 1955 to 2009.
LDP president Shinzo Abe is a hawkish ideologue who was prime minister in 2006-7.
The LDP has pledged to:
—review all nuclear reactors in three years to decide whether to restart them.
—decide within 10 years Japan’s new energy mix, which may or may not include nuclear power generation.
—achieve three-percent nominal economic growth.
—set an inflation target of two percent and may review the Bank of Japan law to push the central bank to take further easing measures.
—strengthen Japan’s administration of islands that China claims.
—expand the Self Defense Forces and rename them National Defense Forces.
—cut more than 2.8 trillion yen in public spending by reducing welfare and government personnel costs.
—conduct a 10-year program to make infrastructure disaster-resistant.
The Japan Restoration Party was launched this year, originally under reformist Osaka mayor Toru Hashimoto. It is now headed by controversial ex-governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara.
The JRP was born out of a coalition of small parties with varying ideological backgrounds, and is united in its aim to take power from established parties.
The JRP has promised to:
—draft a new constitution to replace the current one written by the United States shortly after World War II.
—achieve three percent nominal growth and two percent inflation.
—join negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership free trade talks.
—reduce parliamentarians’ salary and seats.
—end reliance on nuclear power.
—aggressively push for decentralisation of power.
The Japan Future Party was launched after the election was called in mid-November. It is headed by Shiga prefecture governor Yukiko Kada on an anti-nuclear platform.
Many pundits say Kada is a figurehead for a party that is really run by veteran backroom deal-maker Ichiro Ozawa.
Among its pledges, the party promises to:
—end nuclear power generation in 10 years.
—stop the consumption tax hike.
—offer special allowances to families with children.
The New Komeito is a party of lay Buddhists that enjoys a narrow but loyal support base. It advocates pacifist policies and social programs to help the vulnerable.
It formed a coalition government with the LDP between 1999 and 2009 and has worked with it in opposition.
The party has pledged to:
—phase out nuclear power “as soon as possible” by not approving plans to build new reactors.
—expand scholarships for high school and college students and freeze fees for pre-schools and nursery schools.
—get Japan out of deflation within two years, achieving nominal 3-4 percent growth.
—boost diplomacy to protect Japanese territory including islands in disputes with neighbouring nations.
—seeks to build a Free Trade Area of Asia-Pacific (FTAAP) through making free trade deals.
© 2012 AFP
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Principles for financial market infrastructure: disclosure framework and assessment methodology
Principles for financial market infrastructure: disclosure framework and assessment methodology
December 2012
http://www.bis.org/publ/cpss106.htm
The Committee on Payment and Settlement Systems (CPSS) and the
International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) have
published a disclosure framework and assessment methodology for their Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMIs), the new international standards for financial market infrastructures:
The disclosure framework and the assessment methodology promote consistent disclosures of information by FMIs and consistent assessments by international financial institutions and national authorities. The assessment methodology is primarily intended for use by external assessors at the international level, in particular the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It also provides a baseline for national authorities to assess observance of the principles by the FMIs under their oversight or supervision and to self-assess the way they discharge their own responsibilities as regulators, supervisors, and overseers.
The PFMIs are new international standards for payment, clearing and settlement systems, including central counterparties, that were published in April as Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMIs). The PFMIs are designed to ensure that the infrastructure supporting global financial markets is robust and thus well placed to withstand financial shocks.
December 2012
http://www.bis.org/publ/cpss106.htm
- the disclosure framework is intended to promote consistent and comprehensive public disclosure by FMIs in line with the requirements of the PFMIs; and
- the assessment methodology provides guidance for monitoring and assessing observance with the PFMIs.
The disclosure framework and the assessment methodology promote consistent disclosures of information by FMIs and consistent assessments by international financial institutions and national authorities. The assessment methodology is primarily intended for use by external assessors at the international level, in particular the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. It also provides a baseline for national authorities to assess observance of the principles by the FMIs under their oversight or supervision and to self-assess the way they discharge their own responsibilities as regulators, supervisors, and overseers.
The PFMIs are new international standards for payment, clearing and settlement systems, including central counterparties, that were published in April as Principles for financial market infrastructures (PFMIs). The PFMIs are designed to ensure that the infrastructure supporting global financial markets is robust and thus well placed to withstand financial shocks.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt?
The financial cycle and macroeconomics: What have we learnt? By Claudio Borio
BIS Working Papers No 395
December 2012
http://www.bis.org/publ/work395.htm
It is high time we rediscovered the role of the financial cycle in macroeconomics. In the environment that has prevailed for at least three decades now, it is not possible to understand business fluctuations and the corresponding analytical and policy challenges without understanding the financial cycle. This calls for a rethink of modelling strategies and for significant adjustments to macroeconomic policies. This essay highlights the stylised empirical features of the financial cycle, conjectures as to what it may take to model it satisfactorily, and considers its policy implications. In the discussion of policy, the essay pays special attention to the bust phase, which is less well explored and raises much more controversial issues.
JEL classification: E30, E44, E50, G10, G20, G28, H30, H50
Keywords: financial cycle, business cycle, medium term, financial crises, monetary economy, balance sheet recessions, balance sheet repair
BIS Working Papers No 395
December 2012
http://www.bis.org/publ/work395.htm
It is high time we rediscovered the role of the financial cycle in macroeconomics. In the environment that has prevailed for at least three decades now, it is not possible to understand business fluctuations and the corresponding analytical and policy challenges without understanding the financial cycle. This calls for a rethink of modelling strategies and for significant adjustments to macroeconomic policies. This essay highlights the stylised empirical features of the financial cycle, conjectures as to what it may take to model it satisfactorily, and considers its policy implications. In the discussion of policy, the essay pays special attention to the bust phase, which is less well explored and raises much more controversial issues.
JEL classification: E30, E44, E50, G10, G20, G28, H30, H50
Keywords: financial cycle, business cycle, medium term, financial crises, monetary economy, balance sheet recessions, balance sheet repair
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Mobilizing Resources, Building Coalitions: Local Power in Indonesia
Mobilizing Resources, Building Coalitions: Local Power in Indonesia, by Ryan Tans
Honolulu: East-West Center, 2012
Policy Studies, No. 64
ISBN: 978-0-86638-220-5
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/mobilizing-resources-building-coalitions-local-power-in-indonesia
What have been the local political consequences of Indonesia's decentralization and electoral reforms? Some recent scholarship has emphasized continuity with Suharto's New Order, arguing that under the new rules, old elites have used money and intimidation to capture elected office. Studies detail the widespread practice of "money politics," in which candidates exchange patronage for support from voters and parties. Yet significant variation characterizes Indonesia's local politics, which suggests the need for an approach that differentiates contrasting power arrangements.
This study of three districts in North Sumatra province compares local politicians according to their institutional resource bases and coalitional strategies. Even if all practice money politics, they form different coalition types that depend on diverse institutions for political resources. The three ideal types of coalitions are political mafias, party machines, and mobilizing coalitions. Political mafias have a resource base limited to local state institutions and businesses; party machines bridge local and supra-local institutions; and mobilizing coalitions incorporate social organizations and groups of voters. Due to contrasting resource bases, the coalitions have different strategic option "menus," and they may experiment with various political tactics.
The framework developed here plausibly applies in other Indonesian districts to the extent that similar resource bases--namely local state institutions, party networks, and strong social and business organizations--are available to elites in other places.
About the Author: Ryan Tans is a doctoral student in political science at Emory University. Previously, he received a Master of Arts in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.
Honolulu: East-West Center, 2012
Policy Studies, No. 64
ISBN: 978-0-86638-220-5
http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/mobilizing-resources-building-coalitions-local-power-in-indonesia
What have been the local political consequences of Indonesia's decentralization and electoral reforms? Some recent scholarship has emphasized continuity with Suharto's New Order, arguing that under the new rules, old elites have used money and intimidation to capture elected office. Studies detail the widespread practice of "money politics," in which candidates exchange patronage for support from voters and parties. Yet significant variation characterizes Indonesia's local politics, which suggests the need for an approach that differentiates contrasting power arrangements.
This study of three districts in North Sumatra province compares local politicians according to their institutional resource bases and coalitional strategies. Even if all practice money politics, they form different coalition types that depend on diverse institutions for political resources. The three ideal types of coalitions are political mafias, party machines, and mobilizing coalitions. Political mafias have a resource base limited to local state institutions and businesses; party machines bridge local and supra-local institutions; and mobilizing coalitions incorporate social organizations and groups of voters. Due to contrasting resource bases, the coalitions have different strategic option "menus," and they may experiment with various political tactics.
The framework developed here plausibly applies in other Indonesian districts to the extent that similar resource bases--namely local state institutions, party networks, and strong social and business organizations--are available to elites in other places.
About the Author: Ryan Tans is a doctoral student in political science at Emory University. Previously, he received a Master of Arts in Southeast Asian Studies from the National University of Singapore.
Saturday, December 8, 2012
Unmitigated disasters? New evidence on the macroeconomic cost of natural catastrophes
Unmitigated disasters? New evidence on the macroeconomic cost of natural catastrophes. By Goetz von Peter, Sebastian von Dahlen and Sweta C Saxena
BIS Working Papers No 394
December 2012
December 2012
http://www.bis.org/publ/work394.htm
Abstract: This paper presents a large panel study on the macroeconomic
consequences of natural catastrophes and analyzes the extent to which
risk transfer to insurance markets facilitates economic recovery. Our
main results are that major natural catastrophes have large and signi
cant negative e ects on economic activity, both on impact and over the
longer run. However, it is mainly the uninsured losses that drive the
subsequent macroeconomic cost, whereas sufficiently insured events are
inconsequential in terms of foregone output. This result helps to
disentangle conicting ndings in the literature, and puts the focus on
risk transfer mechanisms to help mitigate the macroeconomic costs of
natural catastrophes.
JEL classification: G22, O11, O44, Q54.
Keywords: Natural catastrophes, disasters, economic growth, insurance, risk transfer, reinsurance, recovery, development
Excerpts:
By using a novel and unique dataset, this paper measures the dynamic response of growth to major natural catastrophes, and examines the extent to which risk transfer to insurance markets facilitates economic recovery for a large cross-section of countries. With this aim, the paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, our analysis has a broader scope than other studies. We construct a large panel with 8,252 country-year observations, covering 203 countries and jurisdictions between 1960 and 2011, matched with 2476 major natural catastrophes of four different physical types. Importantly, we make use of the most detailed statistics available on total and insured losses, obtained from industry sources. These unique data are better suited for the analysis than the public CRED database used in the existing literature.1 On the methodological side, we estimate the full time profile of economic growth in response to natural disasters in a dynamic specification. This allows us to present a more complete picture of growth dynamics than studies that focus on a particular time segment only.
Third, and most importantly, this is the first paper to make the link between natural catastrophes and economic growth conditional on risk transfer. This nuances the transmission channels, thereby helping to resolve the conflicting findings on catastrophe-related growth e ects in the literature. In particular, we show that the uninsured part of disaster-related losses drives the subsequent macroeconomic cost in terms of foregone output. In focusing on economic activity, we recognize that disasters invariably diminish the wellbeing of affected populations even if growth rebounds.2 That said, there is little evidence that countries rebound from natural catastrophes when uninsured. We nd that a typical (median) catastrophe causes a drop in growth of 0.6-1.0% on impact and results in a cumulative output loss of two to three times this magnitude, with higher estimates for larger (mean) catastrophes. Well insured catastrophes, by contrast, can be inconsequential or positive for growth over the medium term as insurance payouts help fund reconstruction efforts.
These fidings suggest that risk transfer to insurance markets has a macroeconomic value. This value may be particularly high for smaller nations that lack the capacity to (re)insure themselves against major natural disasters. The analysis thus contributes to the policy debate on different forms of post-disaster spending, as well as the balance between prevention ex ante and compensation ex post. Our finding that catastrophes have permanent output effects is also relevant for a growing literature that explains asset pricing puzzles through rare disasters. The extent to which risk transfer mitigates the macroeconomic cost of disasters is pertinent to the literature on finance and growth, which focuses on banks and stock markets but not on insurance. Considering the macroeconomic value of risk transfer could also enrich the macroprudential approach to the regulation and supervision of insurance companies.
JEL classification: G22, O11, O44, Q54.
Keywords: Natural catastrophes, disasters, economic growth, insurance, risk transfer, reinsurance, recovery, development
Excerpts:
By using a novel and unique dataset, this paper measures the dynamic response of growth to major natural catastrophes, and examines the extent to which risk transfer to insurance markets facilitates economic recovery for a large cross-section of countries. With this aim, the paper makes three contributions to the literature. First, our analysis has a broader scope than other studies. We construct a large panel with 8,252 country-year observations, covering 203 countries and jurisdictions between 1960 and 2011, matched with 2476 major natural catastrophes of four different physical types. Importantly, we make use of the most detailed statistics available on total and insured losses, obtained from industry sources. These unique data are better suited for the analysis than the public CRED database used in the existing literature.1 On the methodological side, we estimate the full time profile of economic growth in response to natural disasters in a dynamic specification. This allows us to present a more complete picture of growth dynamics than studies that focus on a particular time segment only.
Third, and most importantly, this is the first paper to make the link between natural catastrophes and economic growth conditional on risk transfer. This nuances the transmission channels, thereby helping to resolve the conflicting findings on catastrophe-related growth e ects in the literature. In particular, we show that the uninsured part of disaster-related losses drives the subsequent macroeconomic cost in terms of foregone output. In focusing on economic activity, we recognize that disasters invariably diminish the wellbeing of affected populations even if growth rebounds.2 That said, there is little evidence that countries rebound from natural catastrophes when uninsured. We nd that a typical (median) catastrophe causes a drop in growth of 0.6-1.0% on impact and results in a cumulative output loss of two to three times this magnitude, with higher estimates for larger (mean) catastrophes. Well insured catastrophes, by contrast, can be inconsequential or positive for growth over the medium term as insurance payouts help fund reconstruction efforts.
These fidings suggest that risk transfer to insurance markets has a macroeconomic value. This value may be particularly high for smaller nations that lack the capacity to (re)insure themselves against major natural disasters. The analysis thus contributes to the policy debate on different forms of post-disaster spending, as well as the balance between prevention ex ante and compensation ex post. Our finding that catastrophes have permanent output effects is also relevant for a growing literature that explains asset pricing puzzles through rare disasters. The extent to which risk transfer mitigates the macroeconomic cost of disasters is pertinent to the literature on finance and growth, which focuses on banks and stock markets but not on insurance. Considering the macroeconomic value of risk transfer could also enrich the macroprudential approach to the regulation and supervision of insurance companies.
The Need for "Un-consolidating" Consolidated Banks' Stress Tests
The Need for "Un-consolidating" Consolidated Banks' Stress Tests. By Eugenio Cerutti and Christian Schmieder
IMF, December 06, 2012
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=40151.0
Summary: The recent crisis has spurred the use of stress tests as a (crisis) management and early warning tool. However, a weakness is that they omit potential risks embedded in the banking groups’ geographical structures by assuming that capital and liquidity are available wherever they are needed within the group. This assumption neglects the fact that regulations differ across countries (e.g., minimum capital requirements), and, more importantly, that home/host regulators might limit flows of capital or liquidity within a group during periods of stress. This study presents a framework on how to integrate this risk element into stress tests, and provides illustrative calculations on the size of the potential adjustments needed in the presence of some limits on intragroup flows for banks included in the June 2011 EBA stress tests.
IMF, December 06, 2012
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=40151.0
Summary: The recent crisis has spurred the use of stress tests as a (crisis) management and early warning tool. However, a weakness is that they omit potential risks embedded in the banking groups’ geographical structures by assuming that capital and liquidity are available wherever they are needed within the group. This assumption neglects the fact that regulations differ across countries (e.g., minimum capital requirements), and, more importantly, that home/host regulators might limit flows of capital or liquidity within a group during periods of stress. This study presents a framework on how to integrate this risk element into stress tests, and provides illustrative calculations on the size of the potential adjustments needed in the presence of some limits on intragroup flows for banks included in the June 2011 EBA stress tests.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Remarks of Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Mary Miller at the Office of Financial Research (OFR) and Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Conference on “Assessing Financial Intermediation: Measurement and Analysis”
Remarks of Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Mary Miller at the Office of Financial Research (OFR) and Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) Conference on "Assessing Financial Intermediation: Measurement and Analysis"
Dec 6, 2012
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1789.aspx
As Prepared for Delivery
WASHINGTON – Good morning and thank you to the OFR and the Council for the opportunity to join you here today.
It is a pleasure for me to note that this is the second annual conference hosted by the OFR and the Council. These two organizations have come a long way since their creation in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
Conferences like this one are a key way that the OFR and the Council are leveraging their expertise by calling on experts from academia, industry, and elsewhere in government to bring diverse perspectives on questions related to system-wide financial stability.
The Dodd-Frank Act designed the OFR to act as a catalyst to foster a broad examination of questions related to financial stability. One of the OFR’s goals involves cultivating a virtual network of academics, researchers, and others to enrich and expand the OFR’s reach in fulfilling its mission.
The Council and the OFR work together to produce important and timely research and analysis on a range of issues—for example, on the risks presented by money market funds. In addition, the OFR plays a central role in the international initiative to implement a global data standard to identify uniquely the entities in financial transactions. This legal entity identifier, or LEI, is essential for governments and the financial industry to assess exposures and interconnections within the vast network of financial market participants. And both the Council and the OFR have published detailed annual reports to engage the public with their work.
Today’s conference provides an opportunity to build on those accomplishments and to continue a discussion on the best ways to promote financial stability.
The financial services marketplace is constantly changing, as market participants seek new and better ways to do business, as technology and techniques evolve, and as government adjusts the regulatory and supervisory framework.
This process of evolution creates exciting opportunities, but it also represents a moving target of possible risks that can grow into potential threats to financial stability. That is where the Council and the OFR come in and that is where this conference will turn its focus.
Before the Dodd-Frank Act, the United States did not have one single agency tasked with looking at systemic risk across the financial system and considering how to respond to it – what we call a macroprudential approach. That shortcoming resulted in a critical blind spot to risks building in the financial system and, once the crisis began, blocked a clear view of what was happening as the nation plummeted into the financial crisis.
The Council and the OFR are designed to correct that lack of comprehensive vision – to provide visibility across the financial services marketplace and across the areas of the compartmentalized responsibility of federal and state financial regulators. It also allows us to inspect the inner workings of the financial system for an understanding of the interconnections that can transmit and compound systemic risks.
As 2012 draws to a close and Dodd-Frank implementation continues, our resolve is stronger than ever to resist any attempt to roll back these reforms and return our country to the precarious environment of misplaced incentives and inadequate controls that got us into such serious trouble.
We must also be mindful that, as the economy continues to recover, we must remain vigilant about detecting emerging risks and taking appropriate action.
In my experience, you are never handed the same script for a financial crisis or shock. The next financial crisis is unlikely to look like the last. Innovative thinking is essential as we recognize that the past approaches for assessing and managing system-wide risks are inadequate for facing the challenges of today and tomorrow. New ideas must be applied to these problems and government cannot generate all of the good new ideas on its own. There must be a partnership with academics, industry, and others—and conferences like this one are incubators for new ideas to emerge and begin to develop.
I would like to thank all of the conference participants for contributing to this effort and for helping to expand our collective knowledge of financial stability. Your time and energies are providing a valuable service to our country, its economy, and its citizens.
###
Dec 6, 2012
http://www.treasury.gov/press-center/press-releases/Pages/tg1789.aspx
As Prepared for Delivery
WASHINGTON – Good morning and thank you to the OFR and the Council for the opportunity to join you here today.
It is a pleasure for me to note that this is the second annual conference hosted by the OFR and the Council. These two organizations have come a long way since their creation in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act of 2010.
Conferences like this one are a key way that the OFR and the Council are leveraging their expertise by calling on experts from academia, industry, and elsewhere in government to bring diverse perspectives on questions related to system-wide financial stability.
The Dodd-Frank Act designed the OFR to act as a catalyst to foster a broad examination of questions related to financial stability. One of the OFR’s goals involves cultivating a virtual network of academics, researchers, and others to enrich and expand the OFR’s reach in fulfilling its mission.
The Council and the OFR work together to produce important and timely research and analysis on a range of issues—for example, on the risks presented by money market funds. In addition, the OFR plays a central role in the international initiative to implement a global data standard to identify uniquely the entities in financial transactions. This legal entity identifier, or LEI, is essential for governments and the financial industry to assess exposures and interconnections within the vast network of financial market participants. And both the Council and the OFR have published detailed annual reports to engage the public with their work.
Today’s conference provides an opportunity to build on those accomplishments and to continue a discussion on the best ways to promote financial stability.
The financial services marketplace is constantly changing, as market participants seek new and better ways to do business, as technology and techniques evolve, and as government adjusts the regulatory and supervisory framework.
This process of evolution creates exciting opportunities, but it also represents a moving target of possible risks that can grow into potential threats to financial stability. That is where the Council and the OFR come in and that is where this conference will turn its focus.
Before the Dodd-Frank Act, the United States did not have one single agency tasked with looking at systemic risk across the financial system and considering how to respond to it – what we call a macroprudential approach. That shortcoming resulted in a critical blind spot to risks building in the financial system and, once the crisis began, blocked a clear view of what was happening as the nation plummeted into the financial crisis.
The Council and the OFR are designed to correct that lack of comprehensive vision – to provide visibility across the financial services marketplace and across the areas of the compartmentalized responsibility of federal and state financial regulators. It also allows us to inspect the inner workings of the financial system for an understanding of the interconnections that can transmit and compound systemic risks.
As 2012 draws to a close and Dodd-Frank implementation continues, our resolve is stronger than ever to resist any attempt to roll back these reforms and return our country to the precarious environment of misplaced incentives and inadequate controls that got us into such serious trouble.
We must also be mindful that, as the economy continues to recover, we must remain vigilant about detecting emerging risks and taking appropriate action.
In my experience, you are never handed the same script for a financial crisis or shock. The next financial crisis is unlikely to look like the last. Innovative thinking is essential as we recognize that the past approaches for assessing and managing system-wide risks are inadequate for facing the challenges of today and tomorrow. New ideas must be applied to these problems and government cannot generate all of the good new ideas on its own. There must be a partnership with academics, industry, and others—and conferences like this one are incubators for new ideas to emerge and begin to develop.
I would like to thank all of the conference participants for contributing to this effort and for helping to expand our collective knowledge of financial stability. Your time and energies are providing a valuable service to our country, its economy, and its citizens.
###
Tuesday, December 4, 2012
Tracking Global Demand for Advanced Economy Sovereign Debt
Tracking Global Demand for Advanced Economy Sovereign Debt. Prepared by Serkan Arslanalp and Takahiro Tsuda
IMF Working Paper No. 12/284
December 2012
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=40135.0
Recent events have shown that sovereign, just like banks, can be subject to runs, highlighting the importance of the investor base for their liabilities. This paper proposes a methodology for compiling internationally comparable estimates of investor holdings of sovereign debt. Based on this methodology, it introduces a dataset for 24 major advanced economies that can be used to track US$42 trillion of sovereign debt holdings on a quarterly basis over 2004-11. While recent outflows from euro periphery countries have received wide attention, most sovereign borrowers have continued to increase reliance on foreign investors. This may have helped reduce borrowing costs, but it can imply higher refinancing risks going forward. Meanwhile, advanced economy banks’ exposure to their own government debt has begun to increase across the board after the global financial crisis, strengthening sovereign-bank linkages. In light of these risks, the paper proposes a framework— sovereign funding shock scenarios (FSS)—to conduct forward-looking analysis to assess sovereigns’ vulnerability to sudden investor outflows, which can be used along with standard debt sustainability analyses (DSA). It also introduces two risk indices—investor base risk index (IRI) and foreign investor position index (FIPI)—to assess sovereigns’ vulnerability to shifts in investor behavior.
IMF Working Paper No. 12/284
December 2012
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=40135.0
Recent events have shown that sovereign, just like banks, can be subject to runs, highlighting the importance of the investor base for their liabilities. This paper proposes a methodology for compiling internationally comparable estimates of investor holdings of sovereign debt. Based on this methodology, it introduces a dataset for 24 major advanced economies that can be used to track US$42 trillion of sovereign debt holdings on a quarterly basis over 2004-11. While recent outflows from euro periphery countries have received wide attention, most sovereign borrowers have continued to increase reliance on foreign investors. This may have helped reduce borrowing costs, but it can imply higher refinancing risks going forward. Meanwhile, advanced economy banks’ exposure to their own government debt has begun to increase across the board after the global financial crisis, strengthening sovereign-bank linkages. In light of these risks, the paper proposes a framework— sovereign funding shock scenarios (FSS)—to conduct forward-looking analysis to assess sovereigns’ vulnerability to sudden investor outflows, which can be used along with standard debt sustainability analyses (DSA). It also introduces two risk indices—investor base risk index (IRI) and foreign investor position index (FIPI)—to assess sovereigns’ vulnerability to shifts in investor behavior.
Monday, December 3, 2012
Operationalising the selection and application of macroprudential instruments
Operationalising the selection and application of macroprudential instruments
Committee on the Global Financial System
December 3, 2012
http://www.bis.org/press/p121203.htm
Committee on the Global Financial System
December 3, 2012
http://www.bis.org/press/p121203.htm
The recent financial crisis has accelerated efforts to develop
macroprudential policy frameworks. As a result, new or strengthened
mandates for macroprudential policies have been established in a growing
range of jurisdictions. A report released today by the Committee on the
Global Financial System (CGFS) provides practical guidance for
policymakers on how macroprudential instruments should be chosen,
combined and applied.
This report - prepared by a Working Group chaired by José-Manuel
González-Páramo, formerly of the European Central Bank - aims to help
policymakers in operationalising macroprudential policies.
Specifically, it identifies three high-level criteria that are key
in determining the selection and application of macroprudential
instruments:
- the ability to determine the appropriate timing for the instrument's activation or deactivation;
- the instrument's effectiveness in achieving the stated policy objective; and
- the instrument's efficiency in terms of a cost-benefit assessment.
In trying to operationalise these criteria, the report proposes a
number of practical tools that can help when choosing and implementing
macroprudential instruments.
William C Dudley, CGFS Chairman and President of the Federal Reserve
Bank of New York, says in the preface of the report: "We hope that the
practical approaches described in this report will prove to be a
relevant and timely input to the macroprudential policy frameworks that
are currently being established in a large range of jurisdictions."
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Human Nature: Jim Sinegal Dividend Tax Decision - Costco Will Borrow To Pay Dividends
Costco's Dividend Tax Epiphany. WSJ Editorial
Obama's fans in the 1% vote to beat Obama's tax increase.The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012, on page A14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324705104578149012514177372.html
When President Obama needed a business executive to come to his campaign defense, Jim Sinegal was there. The Costco COST +2.07% co-founder, director and former CEO even made a prime-time speech at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte. So what a surprise this week to see that Mr. Sinegal and the rest of the Costco board voted to give themselves a special dividend to avoid Mr. Obama's looming tax increase. Is this what the President means by "tax fairness"?
Specifically, the giant retailer announced Wednesday that the company will pay a special dividend of $7 a share this month. That's a $3 billion Christmas gift for shareholders that will let them be taxed at the current dividend rate of 15%, rather than next year's rate of up to 43.4%—an increase to 39.6% as the Bush-era rates expire plus another 3.8% from the new ObamaCare surcharge.
More striking is that Costco also announced that it will borrow $3.5 billion to finance the special payout. Dividends are typically paid out of earnings, either current or accumulated. But so eager are the Costco executives to get out ahead of the tax man that they're taking on debt to do so.
Shareholders were happy as they bid up shares by more than 5% in two days. But the rating agencies were less thrilled, as Fitch downgraded Costco's credit to A+ from AA-. Standard & Poor's had been watching the company for a potential upgrade but pulled the watch on the borrowing news.
We think companies can do what they want with their cash, but it's certainly rare to see a public corporation weaken its balance sheet not for investment in the future but to make a one-time equity payout. It's a good illustration of the way that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's near-zero interest rates are combining with federal tax policy to distort business decisions.
One of the biggest dividend winners will be none other than Mr. Sinegal, who owns about two million shares, while his wife owns another 84,669. At $7 a share, the former CEO will take home roughly $14 million. At a 15% tax rate he'll get to keep nearly $12 million of that windfall, while at next year's rate of 43.4% he'd take home only about $8 million. That's a lot of extra cannoli.
This isn't exactly the tone of, er, shared sacrifice that Mr. Sinegal struck on stage in Charlotte. He described Mr. Obama as "a President making an economy built to last," adding that "for companies like Costco to invest, grow, hire and flourish, the conditions have to be right. That requires something from all of us." But apparently $4 million less from Mr. Sinegal.
By the way, the Costco board also includes at least two other prominent tub-thumpers for higher taxes— William Gates Sr. and Charles Munger. Mr. Gates, the father of Microsoft's MSFT -1.22% Bill Gates, has campaigned against repealing the death tax and led the fight to impose an income tax via referendum in Washington state in 2010. It lost. Mr. Munger is Warren Buffett's longtime Sancho Panza at Berkshire Hathaway BRKB 0.00% and has spoken approvingly of a value-added tax that would stick it to the middle class.
Costco's chief financial officer, Richard Galanti, confirms that every member of the board is also a shareholder. Based on the most recent publicly available data, they own more than 4.1 million shares and more than 1.3 million options to purchase additional shares. At $7 a share, the dividend will distribute roughly $29 million to the board, including Mr. Sinegal's $14 million—at a collective tax saving of about $8 million. Even more cannoli.
We emailed Mr. Sinegal for comment but didn't hear back. Mr. Galanti explained that while looming tax hikes are a factor in the December borrowing and payout, so are current low interest rates. Mr. Galanti adds that the company will still have a strong balance sheet and is increasing its capital expenditures and store openings this year.
As it happens, one of those new stores opened Thursday in Washington, D.C., and no less a political star than Joe Biden stopped by to join Mr. Sinegal and pose for photos as he did some Christmas shopping. It's nice to have friends in high places. We don't know if Mr. Biden is a Costco shareholder, but if he wants to get in on the special dividend there's still time before his confiscatory tax policy hits. The dividend is payable on December 18 to holders of record on December 10.
To sum up: Here we have people at the very top of the top 1% who preach about tax fairness voting to write themselves a huge dividend check to avoid the Obama tax increase they claim it is a public service to impose on middle-class Americans who work for 30 years and finally make $250,000 for a brief window in time.
If they had any shame, they'd send their entire windfall to the Treasury.
Obama's fans in the 1% vote to beat Obama's tax increase.The Wall Street Journal, November 30, 2012, on page A14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324705104578149012514177372.html
When President Obama needed a business executive to come to his campaign defense, Jim Sinegal was there. The Costco COST +2.07% co-founder, director and former CEO even made a prime-time speech at the Democratic Party convention in Charlotte. So what a surprise this week to see that Mr. Sinegal and the rest of the Costco board voted to give themselves a special dividend to avoid Mr. Obama's looming tax increase. Is this what the President means by "tax fairness"?
Specifically, the giant retailer announced Wednesday that the company will pay a special dividend of $7 a share this month. That's a $3 billion Christmas gift for shareholders that will let them be taxed at the current dividend rate of 15%, rather than next year's rate of up to 43.4%—an increase to 39.6% as the Bush-era rates expire plus another 3.8% from the new ObamaCare surcharge.
More striking is that Costco also announced that it will borrow $3.5 billion to finance the special payout. Dividends are typically paid out of earnings, either current or accumulated. But so eager are the Costco executives to get out ahead of the tax man that they're taking on debt to do so.
Shareholders were happy as they bid up shares by more than 5% in two days. But the rating agencies were less thrilled, as Fitch downgraded Costco's credit to A+ from AA-. Standard & Poor's had been watching the company for a potential upgrade but pulled the watch on the borrowing news.
We think companies can do what they want with their cash, but it's certainly rare to see a public corporation weaken its balance sheet not for investment in the future but to make a one-time equity payout. It's a good illustration of the way that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's near-zero interest rates are combining with federal tax policy to distort business decisions.
One of the biggest dividend winners will be none other than Mr. Sinegal, who owns about two million shares, while his wife owns another 84,669. At $7 a share, the former CEO will take home roughly $14 million. At a 15% tax rate he'll get to keep nearly $12 million of that windfall, while at next year's rate of 43.4% he'd take home only about $8 million. That's a lot of extra cannoli.
This isn't exactly the tone of, er, shared sacrifice that Mr. Sinegal struck on stage in Charlotte. He described Mr. Obama as "a President making an economy built to last," adding that "for companies like Costco to invest, grow, hire and flourish, the conditions have to be right. That requires something from all of us." But apparently $4 million less from Mr. Sinegal.
By the way, the Costco board also includes at least two other prominent tub-thumpers for higher taxes— William Gates Sr. and Charles Munger. Mr. Gates, the father of Microsoft's MSFT -1.22% Bill Gates, has campaigned against repealing the death tax and led the fight to impose an income tax via referendum in Washington state in 2010. It lost. Mr. Munger is Warren Buffett's longtime Sancho Panza at Berkshire Hathaway BRKB 0.00% and has spoken approvingly of a value-added tax that would stick it to the middle class.
Costco's chief financial officer, Richard Galanti, confirms that every member of the board is also a shareholder. Based on the most recent publicly available data, they own more than 4.1 million shares and more than 1.3 million options to purchase additional shares. At $7 a share, the dividend will distribute roughly $29 million to the board, including Mr. Sinegal's $14 million—at a collective tax saving of about $8 million. Even more cannoli.
We emailed Mr. Sinegal for comment but didn't hear back. Mr. Galanti explained that while looming tax hikes are a factor in the December borrowing and payout, so are current low interest rates. Mr. Galanti adds that the company will still have a strong balance sheet and is increasing its capital expenditures and store openings this year.
As it happens, one of those new stores opened Thursday in Washington, D.C., and no less a political star than Joe Biden stopped by to join Mr. Sinegal and pose for photos as he did some Christmas shopping. It's nice to have friends in high places. We don't know if Mr. Biden is a Costco shareholder, but if he wants to get in on the special dividend there's still time before his confiscatory tax policy hits. The dividend is payable on December 18 to holders of record on December 10.
To sum up: Here we have people at the very top of the top 1% who preach about tax fairness voting to write themselves a huge dividend check to avoid the Obama tax increase they claim it is a public service to impose on middle-class Americans who work for 30 years and finally make $250,000 for a brief window in time.
If they had any shame, they'd send their entire windfall to the Treasury.
How dare Fannie and Freddie try to charge for their risks?
Senators for Housing Busts. WSJ Editorial
How dare Fannie and Freddie try to charge for their risks.The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2012, on page A14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578139543792750584.html
For proof that politicians have learned nothing from the Federal Housing Administration's insolvency, look no further than a November 19 Senate letter to Edward DeMarco of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees Fannie Mae FNMA 0.00% and Freddie Mac FMCC 0.00% . Mr. DeMarco wants to let the toxic mortgage twins charge higher fees to cover their risks. Oh, the horror.
At issue is a little-noticed September FHFA proposal to discriminate between states with efficient foreclosure practices and those where judicial and regulatory burdens prolong the process. Specifically in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, foreclosures can take years.
Starting next year, Fannie and Freddie would charge borrowers in those states a one-time upfront fee of between 0.15% and 0.30%, which on a 30-year, $200,000 fixed-rate mortgage equates roughly to "an increase of approximately $3.50 to $7.00" on a monthly mortgage payment, according to FHFA.
The agency explained that the fees Fan and Fred charged before the housing crisis "proved inadequate to compensate for the level of actual credit losses" the duo sustained, which "contributed directly to substantial financial support being provided to the two companies by taxpayers." Total taxpayer cost so far: $138 billion. The change would relieve borrowers in low-cost states from subsidizing those in high-cost states. FHFA would lower or eliminate the levy if states sped up their foreclosure processes, which would also speed up the housing recovery.
Cue the outrage from Capitol Hill. "As you know, certain state and local governments have put in place increased regulatory and judicial scrutiny of foreclosures to protect consumers from mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses," Democratic Senators from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida, plus Independent Joe Lieberman, declared. They want the higher fees withdrawn.
Translation: The Senators are embarrassed that FHFA is exposing the cost of their antiforeclosure crusade and are trying to pin the blame on bankers. Recall that the "robo-signing" scandal never unearthed a wave of current borrowers wrongly ejected from their homes. The politicians want Fan and Fred to keep churning out below-market-rate mortgage insurance, regardless of the eventual cost to taxpayers.
This is the kind of thinking that led Fan and Fred to supercharge the subprime lending boom and pushed the FHA into its money-losing expansion. As long as politicians run the housing markets, they will continue promoting such behavior. Kudos to Mr. DeMarco, a career civil servant, for trying to impose a more rational policy, but don't be surprised if the Obama Administration tries to replace him in a second term.
How dare Fannie and Freddie try to charge for their risks.The Wall Street Journal, December 1, 2012, on page A14
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324352004578139543792750584.html
For proof that politicians have learned nothing from the Federal Housing Administration's insolvency, look no further than a November 19 Senate letter to Edward DeMarco of the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which oversees Fannie Mae FNMA 0.00% and Freddie Mac FMCC 0.00% . Mr. DeMarco wants to let the toxic mortgage twins charge higher fees to cover their risks. Oh, the horror.
At issue is a little-noticed September FHFA proposal to discriminate between states with efficient foreclosure practices and those where judicial and regulatory burdens prolong the process. Specifically in Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey and New York, foreclosures can take years.
Starting next year, Fannie and Freddie would charge borrowers in those states a one-time upfront fee of between 0.15% and 0.30%, which on a 30-year, $200,000 fixed-rate mortgage equates roughly to "an increase of approximately $3.50 to $7.00" on a monthly mortgage payment, according to FHFA.
The agency explained that the fees Fan and Fred charged before the housing crisis "proved inadequate to compensate for the level of actual credit losses" the duo sustained, which "contributed directly to substantial financial support being provided to the two companies by taxpayers." Total taxpayer cost so far: $138 billion. The change would relieve borrowers in low-cost states from subsidizing those in high-cost states. FHFA would lower or eliminate the levy if states sped up their foreclosure processes, which would also speed up the housing recovery.
Cue the outrage from Capitol Hill. "As you know, certain state and local governments have put in place increased regulatory and judicial scrutiny of foreclosures to protect consumers from mortgage loan servicing and foreclosure abuses," Democratic Senators from New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Florida, plus Independent Joe Lieberman, declared. They want the higher fees withdrawn.
Translation: The Senators are embarrassed that FHFA is exposing the cost of their antiforeclosure crusade and are trying to pin the blame on bankers. Recall that the "robo-signing" scandal never unearthed a wave of current borrowers wrongly ejected from their homes. The politicians want Fan and Fred to keep churning out below-market-rate mortgage insurance, regardless of the eventual cost to taxpayers.
This is the kind of thinking that led Fan and Fred to supercharge the subprime lending boom and pushed the FHA into its money-losing expansion. As long as politicians run the housing markets, they will continue promoting such behavior. Kudos to Mr. DeMarco, a career civil servant, for trying to impose a more rational policy, but don't be surprised if the Obama Administration tries to replace him in a second term.
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