The Great Flaw in the Free Trade Theory And Other Vain Beliefs, Hoaxes, and Follies

There are several economic models and political memes that rely on an underlying belief in the natural efficiency and goodness of 'free trade' and 'efficient markets.' One can question whether these ideas promoted certain behaviours, or if certain parties promoted these theories to serve as justification for their policy objectives.

Whatever the case may be, let's take a look at the theories that seem to underpin the virtue of 'free trade,' meaning international commerce with very light national regulations and a centralized semi-autonomous authority as arbiter.

One of the theories in favor of free trade is the idea of comparative advantage, that is, that one country might have a natural advantage which they can exploit for their own benefit and the general benefit of the world. I am sure we all learned this in business school. I myself was quite a fan of Michael Porter in my day.

This theory is a universalisation of the idea that the naturally gifted pottery maker, for example, has an inherent talent that can be exploited, and can create and exchange pots for food, let's say, from a farmer who has the advantage of owning suitable farm land and has the talent and tools to exploit it.

Makes common sense does it?   Everyone does what they do best, and through the free exchange of  products the aggregate good is increased.  A nice simplistic maxim that underpins a broad economic and social philosophy, such as 'from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs.'

The fallacy that is repeated over and over by the non-scientific thinker (like too many economists and politicians for example) who use these simple examples and sayings is that one can extend things that might make sense anecdotally into general, almost universal principles writ large on the face real world, or more properly OVER the face of the real world, that at the end have little real fundamental connection with reality and the expected outcomes.

This was Mandelbrot's great criticism of the neo-liberal school of economics, notably the Chicago School, for example. Their broad assumptions crushed the reality out of the math, and the application of their theory made the markets inherently unstable by miscalculating the risks which were allowed to grow to enormous levels, and then crash at the under-expected event, colloquially known as 'a black swan.'

There is some validity to this. Some nations, for example, are blessed with great natural resources such as coal and oil, and they can sell these items to other countries and regions in exchange for items like food, for example.

But like most efficiency arguments, most notably the efficient market hypothesis, these ripples in distribution or market anomalies are quickly exhausted, and in the classic impetus and peril of successful capitalism, the player start to create monopolies and other artificial advantages, such as frauds, which they can exploit more fully.

So for example, a nation such as China can devalue its currency substantially in the 1990's against the world's reserve currency, and thereby set up a set of artificial import barriers and export subsidies, simply by manipulating their currency.

By the way, this is basic math. There are plenty of people who were denying it, and most of them stood to benefit from this charade. But it is true. Anyone who travels internationally and changes money understands it.

The underlying basis of the currency wars is the ability to artificially manipulate one's currency, or even establish a pseudo-monopoly, for the advantage of one to the disadvantage of the others.

There are other methods to accomplish this and they are usually lumped under the title of industrial policy or mercantilism. A country has a set of laws and regulations that foster a certain stance towards issues such as worker's rights, environmentalism, savings and consumption, wealth distribution and even human rights.

The more trade becomes independent of public policy and regulation, the greater the movement of all countries to the least common denominator of the broader policy stances of the mercantilist nations.

In a very real sense, if you control the issuance and terms of money, you care not who makes the laws locally. And the exchange of trade mechanism is a subset of the control of a medium of exchange, which is the trade system, both international and domestic, the who and how people can buy or sell.

This principle seems to be the basis of the inclusion of gold and silver in the money system series of essays written by my friend Hugo Salinas-Price, and the age old understanding of the balancing mechanism of a harder and higher standard of exchange to manage the tendencies of various participants manipulate the rules, and to 'cheat.'

Anyone who believes that believes that markets and society do not require clear laws and impartial referees because people are naturally inclined to know and do the 'right thing' has obviously never driven on a modern American freeway.

If, for example, we were in a gold standard system for international trade, and the governance had allowed China and its multinational capitalist friends to game the system as they are doing now, eventually the flow of gold from the US to China would compel the US to devalue its currency against the Yuan, and thereby persuade China to release more of its reserves as gold back into the system by purchasing other things. If they used it to buy US debt for example, the dollar would continue to devalue in a cycle which would hamper and ultimately defeat the currency mercantilism.

It would have also restrained the US from manipulating the world by 'owning' the world's reserve currency and the 'exorbitant privilege' therein. It would have curtailed unfunded wars, and the exporting of jobs and production in favor of a 'service economy' that consists largely of pushing the reserve currency around the plate, and skimming the greatest portion for an elite group of policy leaders.  No standard is perfect, and there are ways to subvert some external standard like gold, but it is more difficult to do, and it is more easily seen and exposed if the standard is resolute and robust.

We see a similar principle in action in the theory supporting efficient markets. On paper they sound good, but they are deeply flawed because of the nature of the assumptions they make about people and their rationality and selflessness.

As most gardeners can tell you, there is rarely such a thing as a naturally beautiful and weed free garden, especially the ones that look 'natural.' It takes a great deal of forethought, adjustment, and continual work to make anything sustainable in this world of ours. And so it is with markets, both local and international.

There are those, like former Fed Chairman Greenspan, who argue that the fiat regime of the Federal Reserve works if the Fed 'acts like a gold standard,' that is, with an unapproachable virtue.  A similar theory underpins the World Trade Organization's function in international trade.  But like all human systems, they tend to fall to the great truth observed by Lord Action some years ago, that "where you have the concentration of power in a few hands, all too frequently men with the mentality of gangsters get control. History has proven that."

I am not promoting a gold standard per se and understand the problems inherent with it, and do not wish to discuss that here.

But what I am attempting to do is expose some of the fallacies of the zombie economic theories that have led the world to the place where it is today, with too much discretionary power concentrated in too few hands, with a propensity to act in secret and with an excess of latitude behind the cover of those artificial constructs known as 'corporations.'

This notion that government and regulation is the problem is true only to the extent that government has become weakened and corrupted by gross abuses. Effective government takes planning, continual hard work, and the adjustment of renewal and reform.

Human constructs, if not continually managed and repaired and occasionally renewed, tend inevitably into disruption, dysfunctionality, and corruption.

To say, let's just get rid of it and things will somehow become naturally good is to attempt to build a castle in the clouds. It will not and has never worked to promote a harmonious and productive society on a large scale, ever, in all of human history. It is the law of the jungle. But it has its continual appeal to sociopaths, misfits, the naive, the frustrated, and psychopaths. 

It is a tool of the false dialectic of extremes, that argues that the choice is between no government and bad government, and that if government is not perfect it is inherently evil.  Because they are driven to extremes, those who argue this cannot see the great middle ground, of an imperfect government that nevertheless is capable of maintaining justice and order within the context of freedom.   Failure is only certain at the extremes, of authoritarianism and anarchy, when by two different paths one turns society over to the wolves.

The longer this artificial construct of natural goodness and perfect rationality is maintained, the greater the forces against it will build, until countries and nations explode into revolution and wars, as a consequence of folly. 

The model in my forecast says that meaningful reform to the status quo will not be readily accepted by the power elite  They will promote a 'new normal' which will span a leisurely 'five to ten years' for economic recovery, while they are comfortably standing above it all on other people's necks.  The ability to set oneself aside and apart, as separate and above, from the rest of humanity is served in many ways and by many things. It is a dangerous delusion to feel naturally privileged for whatever reason. It can only be maintained through power, and power is a deadly narcotic.

We can be thankful that other crackpot theories have not become mainstream, such as eugenics, or the marginalizing and then disposal of the weak, the disabled, and the different to serve the economic advancement of the state. Or groupthink, and profound belief in national or racial exceptionalism that tends to lead groups to quick utilitarian solutions and Pyrrhic ends. So there is some room for optimism.

Change may not come until the powerful are standing in ashes, and therein lies a tragedy yet to unfold. Let us work on with hope that reform comes well before then.

Financial Times
Swiss central bank considers euro peg
By Peter Garnham

The Swiss National Bank, which has been waging battle to rein in the strength of the currency, has left open the possibility of pegging the Swiss franc to the beleaguered euro.

Thomas Jordan, vice-president of the SNB, said a temporary franc peg with the euro was within the range of options that policymakers might use to stem the Swiss franc’s strength. “Any temporary measures to influence the exchange rate are permissible under our mandate as long as these are consistent with long-term price stability,” he said.

Mr Jordan added that the central bank could employ other tactics, however, raising speculation that the central bank could impose penalty rates on non-resident franc deposits for the first time since the 1970s.

“We still have, at the moment, possibilities to make monetary policy more expansive without intervening in the Swiss franc,” he said.

The comments came after the SNB launched a fresh assault on what it has described as a “massively overvalued” franc on Wednesday by flooding the Swiss money market with liquidity to meet demand for the currency. The Swiss franc pulled back from record highs on Thursday after the bank’s latest action.

The Swiss franc has been driven higher in recent weeks as investors have sought a haven from concerns over eurozone and US government debt and worries over global growth...

Equal Protection (From the Zombie Banks)

"...the AIG bailout, a hideous political contrivance that ranks with the great acts of political corruption and thievery in the history of the United States."

Remarkable that in light of the massive failure of the Executive and Legislative Branches of the United States Corporatocracy to protect and defend the public from the outrages being committed by the FIRE sector, the Judicial Branch is providing a haven for the rights of the people under the Constitution.

Can this be due to the fact that federal judges do not require huge campaign contributions, which Wall Street doles out like a foreign power to the craven denizens of Foggy Bottom?

Indeed. The clauses that designate the Credit Default Swaps as super senior to nearly everything else (Some animals are more equal than others clauses) are being struck down by bankruptcy courts. The banks do not take precedent in the hearts and minds of everyone, despite assertions by Timmy and Hank to the contrary.

This is an old financiers trick in the equity world of venture capital, the Sand Hill Road clause, long used to strip the holders of common shares of their slice of the pie in the evolution of startups. The CDS and CDO variation took the gambit a step too far, stepping on the rights of the bond holders, and the courts are nullifying it. Good for them.

Wall Street does not always come first, when honest public servants uphold their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution against those confiscating the wealth of the people.

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law is the guide of those doing their darker god's work. In the short term it makes them strong, because they deny themselves nothing: no trick or falsehood, no claim or deceit, no act of betrayal or sympathetic ploy. They simply have no shame.

But there is also no honour among thieves, only greed and fear. The best part of honour is the love of something greater than ourselves. And so the bonds of their coalition are weak. Greed and self-interest will be unable to sustain the partnership of government and the Banks when the tide turns-- in the end only the fear remains.

And will Timmy whimper when the zombies turn on him?


Institutional Risk Analyst
Zombie Update: Loan Repurchases and REO Anyone?
February 2, 2010

...Our friends at HousingWire report that a federal bankruptcy judge in New York sitting on the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, has voided the seniority claims of holders of various qualified investment contracts, ruling that their ipso facto clauses which subordinated other claims to their own were "null and void in bankruptcy." This is an important victory for fans of equal protection and due process, and a big setback for the OTC derivative dealer banks which exert considerable influence at the Fed and OCC.

We have always held the view that the attempts by the large dealer banks, ISDA and regulators to carve out a special, privileged place in the law for OTC derivatives contracts in the event of default is inherently unfair and is doomed to failure, or at least would be challenged, on Constitutional grounds. This case and others make that challenge and review process a reality and also leaves much of the world of complex structured finance in a shambles when it comes to the legal reality of counterparty risk.

Indeed, the same legal art that gave the swap counterparties in this latest case the impression that they were senior to the other creditors of the bankruptcy estate was used by former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and his successor, Timothy Geithner, to justify the rescue of American International Group. The very same type of investment contracts that Secretary Paulson and Secretary Geithner swore under oath, over and over again, just had to be paid at par in the case if AIG were just set aside by New York Bankruptcy Judge James Peck.

And notice that the world has not ended when the holders of OTC contracts are treated like everyone else. Indeed, Judge Peck has made a number of rulings over the past two years re-leveling the playing field between holders of OTC contracts and other claims against the Lehman bankruptcy estate. As we have noted before, the admirable conduct of the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy case by Judge Peck and US Bankruptcy Trustee Harvey Miller is the starkest condemnation possible of the AIG bailout, a hideous political contrivance that ranks with the great acts of political corruption and thievery in the history of the United States.

The question of the enforceability of the documentation in a complex structured securitization involving OTC swaps is not just a matter of debate in the AIG case. Across the US and around the world, investors and trustees are grappling with this same issue. The result is litigation by bond trustees against bond issuers as well as claims by guarantors such as MBIA (MBI) and the housing GSEs, including the Federal Home Loan Banks, against sponsor banks. Many of these claims regarding derivatives are being made in the context of claims for the repurchase of defaulted residential and commercial loans.

The wave of loan repurchase demands on securitization sponsors is the next area of fun in the zombie dance party, namely the part where different zombies start to eat one another. The GSE's are going to tear 50-100bp easy out of the flesh of the banking industry in the form of loan returns on trillions of dollars in exposure, this as charge-offs on the several trillion in residential exposure covered by the GSEs heads north of 5%. The damage here is in the hundreds of billions and lands in particular on the larger zombie banks, especially Bank of America (BAC) and Wells Fargo (WFC).

To put the growing combat in the loan repurchase channel into perspective, keen analysts will already know that a new item has appeared in the disclosure for non-interest income by many larger banks that have been active in the securitization markets. In the case of WFC in Q4 2009, gross income of $1.2 billion in mortgage loan originations was net of $316 million in loss reserves for loan repurchases. Imagine if we add a zero to the loss allocation, then another, and you get to the worst-case exposure on OBS loan repurchases.

Watch this heretofore obscure part of the mortgage banking business become downright material in coming quarters as a race of sorts develops between banks that want to restart the securitization markets and those that are being dragged under water by the weight of legacy liabilities. Notice, for instance, that in the MBI litigation against Countrywide Financial et al, MBIA Insurance Corporation v. Countrywide Home Loans, Inc. et al. that now includes BAC explicitly.

The action "arises out of the alleged fraudulent acts and breaches of contract of Countrywide in connection with fifteen securitizations of pools of residential second-lien mortgages" Take particular care to savor the fact that these are second lien pools and that, where defaults have occurred on the primary mortgage, loss severities on the seconds will tend to be 100%. Or the cost could be more than par if you count the cost of remediation and recovery efforts.

With private issuers trying to find a workable formulation for new securitizations, the mounting litigation in the secondary market for structured deals comes at a bad time for efforts to revive the patient and confirms our worry that there is a lot of tough work ahead in the loss mitigation channel. More, we worry that the level of claims and defaults now visible in the US markets is just a taste of the high tide we could see in 2010-2011, especially as and when interest rates start to rise even modestly. Did somebody say "interest rates?"

Warren Pollock: Game Change for Zombie Banks

Obama's Economic Policy Has Doomed the US to Stagnation - Or Worse

This was the very moment of Obama's failure, when he allowed Summers, Geithner and Bernanke to establish the principle of "Too Big To Fail" and set up a financial oligarchy at the expense of taxpayers. We would have expected this out of the Treasury under Hank Paulson, but to see this kind of policy error favoring Wall Street over the US taxpayers from a government elected on the promise of reform is inexcusable, a disgrace.

Be Prepared For the Worst - Ron Paul

Bloomberg
Stiglitz Says U.S. Is Paying for Failure to Nationalize Banks

Nov. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said the world’s biggest economy is suffering because of the U.S. government’s failure to nationalize banks during the financial crisis.

“If we had done the right thing, we would be able to have more influence over the banks,” Stiglitz told reporters at an economic conference in Shanghai Oct 31. “They would be lending and the economy would be stronger.”

Stiglitz has stuck with his view even after the U.S. economy returned to growth in the third quarter and as banks’ share prices climbed this year.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, appearing yesterday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” program, said the country’s economic recovery hinges in part on banks taking more risk and restoring the flow of credit to businesses.

“The big risk we face now is that banks are going to overcorrect and not take enough risk,” Geithner said. “We need them to take a chance again on the American economy. That’s going to be important to recovery.”

President Barack Obama said on Oct. 24 that the nation’s lenders, supported by taxpayers in the crisis, need to “fulfill their responsibility” by lending to small businesses still struggling to get credit.

Companies such as Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America Corp. benefited from a $700 billion taxpayer-funded bailout package last year. In contrast, Obama said that too many small businesses are still short of money, adding that his administration will “take every appropriate step” to encourage banks to lend.

Bank Lending

“We have this very strange situation today in America where we have given banks hundreds of billions of dollars and the president has to beg the banks to lend and they refuse,” Stiglitz said. “What we did was the wrong thing. It has weakened the economy and has increased our deficit, making it more difficult for the future.”

While the U.S. economy grew at a 3.5 percent annual rate in the third quarter, the first expansion in more than a year, the Columbia University economist said the recession is “nowhere near” its end, citing rising unemployment and weak demand.

The U.S. government plans to alter the way that a similar rescue would be handled in the future. Draft legislation proposes that banks, hedge funds and other financial firms holding more than $10 billion in assets would pay to rescue companies whose collapse would shake the financial system. (And it is an inherently unfair plan that creates even additional moral hazard by penalizing sound banking by forcing it to pay for reckless bank management. - Jesse)

Citigroup and Bank of America shares have quadrupled from this year’s lows in March.