Raising Retirement Ages in the E.U.: The Case of Spain

The New York Times reported in 2012, “Spain has a stubbornly high budget deficit, its banks require tens of billions of euros in rescue loans and the government may soon have little choice but to request bailout funds” from the E.U.’s “TARP” program. Nevertheless, the state government’s “budget would actually increase pension payouts 1 percent [in 2013]. The money includes not only pensions for former public employees, but also the social security payments that go to all retired [residents].”[1] Pension expenditures represented nearly 40 percent of the state's budget and 9 percent of the state’s economic output, so one would think that line-item would have been first up on the chopping block. To be sure, cutting sustenance programs such as pensions could actually exacerbate a government's debt because if a resulting decline in demand adds to unemployment. In this case, the politics in the state seems to have gone along with the economics. I submit that Spain could have gone further economically were it not for entitlement politics interlarding the retirement-age issue.
Delaying the increase in the retirement age in Spain from 65 to 67 until 2027 could be seen as a case of politics operating at the expense of what was most needed economically. Given the advances in modern medicine and the universal health-care systems in the E.U., even 67 have been too low and too late. 
Firstly, in the 2010's, the E.U. would struggle with immigration even as more workers were needed. The failure of politics in the state of Spain to jack up the retirement age significantly as early as 2013 may therefore have been a contributing factor in shortchanging the local residents from satisfying the state's need for labor. 

Do the state governments have too much power at the federal level? If so, are Greece and Spain paying the price of the self-interest of more dominant states?  

The E.U. state of Greece demonstrates that going just from 65 to 67 can indeed be accomplished legislatively in a year, even with political protests. “For Greece, the longtime generosity of its pension system — in which large numbers were previously allowed to retire at 50 and younger — came to define the bankrupt condition of the Greek state. In the years before the crisis hit, pension payments in Greece totaled as much as 14 percent” of the state’s economic output.[2] Spain too could have used the decrease in pension costs that a relatively quick raise to 67 would have engendered. Raising the age is distinct from cutting pension amounts, yet the austerity-bred entitlement politics may have spilled onto the age issue. 
Raising the retirement age can be distinguished from the cuts in monthly entitlement programs, such as in the lender-imposed austerity program in Greece. If heath-related exceptions can be made to a higher retirement age based on a generally longer human lifespan, then cutting entitlement programs more than raising the retirement age puts lives at risk. This difference may have been lost in the politics of raising the retirement age in Spain.

1. Landon Thomas, “Pension Dilemma in Europe’s Debt Crisis,” The New York Times, September 30, 2012.
2. Ibid.

Monetary and Fiscal Policy and Structural Reform: Each Had a Role to Play after the Financial Crisis

With fiscal policy hamstrung by public debt in both the E.U. and U.S., monetary policy was a major beneficiary of the financial crisis of 2008 and the ensuing state-debt crisis that stammered on at least until 2013 in Europe. Lest it be concluded that central bank policy had reached an unassailable peak of salvation, the expanded role actually made its limitations transparent, at least in financial circles.
Speaking to Charlie Rose on March 11, 2013, Jeremy Grantham of a Wall Street firm argued that the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank's extremely low interest-rate policy would be unlikely to spark an increase in employment even in the severe recession following the financial crisis. In fact, a low interest rate is a transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich. Fiscal policy, such as the Conservation Civilians Corps of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal in the 1930s, is a much better tool to achieve full employment. Yet even the New Deal did not have enough fire-power to bring the U.S. economy out of the Great Depression; it took the breaking out of a second world war to get America's military-industrial complex to create enough jobs. One implication is that a competitive market alone is not sufficient to reach full employment. Even though such a market can sport great efficiency if kept competitive by the enforcement of anti-trust law, natural consumption levels have been unable to spark enough jobs for full employment to be achieved. Not even low interest rates can do that, as per the decade of the 2010's. We ought to accept that a lot of fiscal stimulus is needed to achieve full employment, even if it is not optimally efficient. 
Meanwhile, Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, argued that monetary policy in the E.U. “can only buy time at best..” He went on to say he was “a bit concerned about some of the expectations around the power and potential of monetary policy.”[1] In other words, the ECB should have gotten back to monetary policy in a stricter sense, rather than trying to spark economic growth and employment through low interest rates and buying state-government bonds.
Behind the view of interest-rate, or monetary, policy as being capable of giving us economic salvation was the paralysis of fiscal policy determination in both federal unions.  Divided government at the federal level stymied fiscal policy in the U.S. after President Obama’s insufficient “stimulus” package in 2010. In the E.U., the vetoes retained by the fiscally- and debt-conservative state governments such as Germany at the federal level through the European Council put pressure on state governments strapped fiscally to take on even more debt even just to avoid defaulting on existing debt, not to mention keeping their fiscal policy-levels sufficient that their residents would not be imperiled. Increasing debt-loads for fiscal reasons did not serve states like Greece and Spain well. Fiscal redistribution at the federal level is one of the benefits of federalism, and yet the E.U. was stymied because each state government had too much power at the federal level (quite unlike the states in the U.S. at its federal level). 
In short, much of the allure of monetary policy actually came from fiscal frustration at the federal levels of both unions. Alternatively, both fiscal and monetary policy could have been used, and pointed in the same direction: toward full employment. Using low interest rates and the issuance of debt, respectively, to pull up an economy out of severe recession and even as political coverage (in the U.S.) or leverage (in the E.U.) for needed structural reforms of a financial system and indebted states, respectively, may not have been sufficient or even smart. Taking on a corruption-induced financial system in the U.S. required a lot of political guts, which not even the Obama administration had, for the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 did not go far enough in deconstructing the conflicts of interest in the system. Also, feeding Wall Street with infusions of government money appropriated by Congress and much more created by the Federal Reserve Bank, with no strings attached, did not make the bankers at the big banks any more willing to accept structural reforms even though they would have protected the banks by fixing the system. Not even fiscal stimulus plus low interest rates could keep the U.S. out of a severe recession, though arguably the U.S. could have entered a severe depression otherwise. Both fiscal and monetary policy and going politically after dysfunctional systems, whether that of Wall Street or those of heavily-indebted E.U. states, all must be used so none of the tools is over-relied upon and thus overused.  

See Institutional Conflicts of Interest, Essays on the Financial Crisis, and Essays on the E.U. Political Economy. All are available at Amazon.

1. Katy Barnato, “Central Banks Alone Can’t Fix Europe: Weidmann,” CNBC, March 12, 2013.  

Political Risk Exaggerated on Catexit

On the day the Catalan parliament voted in favor of “Catexit” from Spain, the IBEX-35 stock-market index dropped 1.4 percent while the Stoxx Europe 600 gained 0.3 percent.[1] The IBEX-35 is an stock-index of companies based in Spain. Investors also sold state bonds; yields on 10-year bonds rose to 1.574% from 1.558. Even though these changes were hardly earth-shattering in magnitude, their directionality points to investor-anxiety. I submit that it was overblown, which suggests that investors generally tend to over-react to political events.

Analysts said at the time that the state of Spain and the E.U. were unlikely to recognize the validity of the legislative vote, so the possibility of social unrest accounted for the drop in the index and rise in bond-yields. The prospect of a Catexit was indeed still bleak; in fact, the state government had redoubled its control in the problematic, wealthy region, so even the prospect that social unrest would even ruffle the feathers of business could be said to be bleak. Uncertainty itself was the alleged culprit. The Wall Street Journal observed at the time that the “market selloff reflects fears that uncertainty will be harmful for [the state’s] economy.”[2] The fear of fear itself, I submit, can as in this instance be overblown, given the haziness of the future negative scenarios.

Generally speaking, political risk can be overstated if a political event occurs on a day rather than strung out over weeks or months even though the eventual possible outcomes are far from clear. The publicity from the sheer dramatic flair of an event can magnify the perception of uncertainty, prompting investors not just to stay away, but even to sell.  

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[1] Jon Sindreu, “Stocks, Bonds Hit by Political Unrest,” The Wall Street Journal, October 28-29, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

Catalania as a State in the E.U.

When Catalania held a referendum on whether to break off from the E.U. state of Spain, the E.U.’s basic law was silent on whether a state’s region would be a new state. The Prodi Doctrine, however, states that a region seceding from a state is automatically no longer part of the European Union. Such a region would have to apply for statehood as if it had been outside of the Union. I submit that such a stance is problematic.

Firstly, “using the euro as a Catalan currency could prove problematic.”[1] Disentangling the region more generally from the Union economically would face formidable challenges. The free movement of workers, for instance, would no longer be possible.

Secondly, to become a state, Catalania would face the unfair hurdle of needing the ok of every extant state, meaning that formerly Spanish region would need the permission of the Spanish government. The latter would likely exploit the conflict of interest that would be involved. Generally speaking, a party to a secession dispute should not be able to veto statehood for a former region of the state. Considering how many states were in the E.U. at the time of Catalania’s referendum on Catexit, the federal requirement that every extant state approve any proposed statehood is problematic. More generally, giving every state a veto even on a matter of basic (i.e., constitutional law) hampers the interests of the federal level of governance. I submit, therefore, that a two-thirds majority is a more viable (and fairer) requirement for the role of the states in cases of proposed states. Spain and other states friendly to the state would not so easily exclude Catalan out of resentment or political vengeance at the expense of the E.U.

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[i] Damian Grammaticas, “Could the EU Throw Out an Independent Catalonia?” BBC.com, October 9, 2017.

On conflicts of interest in government (and business), see: Institutional Conflicts of Interest.

Spain’s Government: Measuring the Will of the People

“’No government in the world’ could tolerate the threatening of its unity,” said Mariano Rajoy, the prime minister of the E.U. state of Spain after a week of protests pro and con on whether the region of Catalonia should secede from the state.[1] On October 1, 2017, the region had held a referendum on the question in spite of the efforts of the state police to stop the vote. Ninety percent of the 40% of the region’s residents voted in favor of breaking off from Spain, but the active presence of the police means that the results could not be taken as an accurate reading of what the population of Catalan wanted.

I contend that the state government should have permitted the referendum because democracy itself depends on a people’s self-determination. In intimidating the vote, the state government inhibited a result that could be taken as the people’s will. The respective sizes of the political protests could not be taken as indicative; neither could pronouncements by Catalan or state officials either way. Sergi Miquel, a Catalan lawmaker, insisted that the turnout would have been much higher had the police not acted violently against potential and actual voters, but we cannot surmise how that turnout would have voted. He had an interest in portraying the averted turnout as pro-secession, while the state’s prime minister had an interest in portraying the Catalan people as pro-Spain. Only a fair and open referendum could have revealed what the region’s people wanted, and democracy itself prizes the will of the people even above a government’s political and territorial interests.

That Spain is an E.U. state mitigated what was on the line (i.e., the significance of secession), assuming that Catalan would be a state too. Generally speaking, being part of the same federal system would mean that Catalan and Spain would be part of the same political system and thus have some laws and regulations in common. One of the prime benefits of federalism is that such commonality coexists with differences that reflect different cultures and self-identifications of peoples. People in Texas are both Texans and Americans. So too, Catalan people would be both Catalans and Europeans; Spaniards are of course Europeans as well. In other words, both Catalans and Spaniards would be E.U. citizens even if the region were to secede and become an E.U. state, and this track would mitigate the significance of secession. It follows that the state’s drastic efforts to violently curtail the referendum can be seen as excessive, as well as being at the expense of democracy. It may be that government officials generally are inclined to lose perspective and resort to force because they can. I submit that force in a democracy should be a last resort, especially when the use interferes with taking the measure of the will of the people.

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[1] Patrick Kingsley and Jason Horowitz, “Amid Catalan Crisis, Thousands Hold Rallies in Madrid and Barcelona,” The New York Times, October 7, 2017.

See also: Essays on the E.U. Political Economy

The Spanish Recovery: On the Roles of Budget Constraints and Exports

In 2007, the E.U. state of Spain “was hopelessly addicted to a credit-fueled construction boom that produced a shattering bust, leaving banks collapsing in the face of bad loans.”[1] A decade later, the state’s economy was “expanding at around 3 percent” over the previous year, “producing goods for export, generating jobs,” and pointing to possible E.U.-wide economic recovery.[2] The Spanish economy had returned to its pre-crisis size, according to the state’s government, yet the economy had not yet solidified a firm foundation and unemployment was still stubbornly high.

Although the credit-based building boom was doubtlessly not sustainable and fraught with risk, the ensuing budget austerity mandated at the federal level inhibited the state’s government from spending more money “on infrastructure projects to generate jobs.”[3] Contracting government spending exacerbates rather than ameliorates an economic downturn, even if deficits go up. The federal law on state deficits being at or below 3.5% of a state’s GDP did not have enough flexibility for the Spanish government to be able to minimize the period of the downturn. 

Hence, The New York Times concluded at the time of the recovery, “Spain’s resurgence is less cause for celebration than a grim reminder of how long it took.”[4] That is to say, the steep unemployment level, which had reached 25 percent, need not have endured as long as it did. Even in 2017, the unemployment rate remained above 18 percent (near 39 percent for the state’s youth).[5] 

It is difficult, therefore, to see even a return to the size of the economy before the debt-crisis as a recovery. To be sure, exports had grown “to close to one-third from about one-fourth of the economy,” and such an economic engine is clearly more stable than an over-leveraged construction-led economy.[6] An economy fueled by consumption-buying from within would be more stable still, however, and the stubbornly high unemployment rate attests to why such a solid foundation had not yet materialized. Even though the large SEAT auto-factory put €3.3 billion (about $3.8 billion) of new machinery into the operations, relying on one company for the surge in exports is not as solid as a diversified export-base.

To be sure, the increasing tax revenue in the state, albeit very modestly, enabled more money to flow back into the economy. Work on the long-planned expansion of the Barcelona subway system, a €6.8 billion project, had resumed. Yet such an infusion was needed especially during the crisis and in the ensuing years of extremely high unemployment.  The inflexible federal strictures of budget discipline did not allow for such counter-cyclical measures even in a rather extreme cyclical downturn.

Related: See Essays on the E.U. Political Economy, available in print and as an ebook at Amazon.com.

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[1] Peter S. Goodman, “Spain’s Long Economic Nightmare Is Finally Over,” The New York Times, July 28, 2017.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

On the Tyranny of the Status Quo

Ever wondered why so much energy must be expended to dislodge a long-established institution, law, or cultural norm? Why does the default have so much staying power? Are we as human beings ill-equipped to bring about, not to mention see, even the “no-brainer” changes that are so much (yet apparently not so obviously) in line with our individual and collective self-interest? In this essay, I look at Ukraine, Spain, and Illinois to make some headway on this rather intractable difficulty.

Ukrainian President Yanukovych refused for months to budge then suddenly disappeared as if a teenager fleeing from a now-likely punishment. (Image Source: AP)

In Kiev’s central square, Ukrainian protesters braved bitter cold for months in late 2013 and early 2014 without any movement whatsoever in disgorging a divisive president who may gone on to surrender Ukraine’s sovereignty for money  in line with Vladimir Putin’s imperial dream of a restored Russian empire under the rubric of a “Eurasian Union.” It took twenty and then seventy deaths before the steadfast protesters would see the president replaced by an interim parliament-centered coalition government. After months of stalemate, the president actually fell from power quite suddenly once his partisan support in parliament had sunk below a threshold.[1] Until that point was reached, any trickles of power shifting behind the scenes did not register in the least as even a slight movement toward a resolution in the massive tug-of-war. Such ongoing intransigence, or gravity, that seemingly inheres in a default is itself an obstacle that can easily dissuade anyone who comes to view the way things are as not only contingent, but also, well, rather stupid. Such an individual might wonder why societal self-corrections in the public interest are so elusive even though they are rather obvious.

Even realizing that a given domain is subject to the rigid longevity of invisible sub-optimality can be difficult to achieve. For example, only after seven decades did the E.U. state of Spain seriously reassess Franco’s decree on May 2, 1942 moving Spain from the GMT time zone, which Spain had adopted at the International Meridian Conference in 1884, to GMT +1. Falling back an hour would put the dictator on the same time as Hitler’s Germany (and France) and Mussolini’s Italy. Seven decades later, in October 2012, the VII National Congress for Rationalise Spanish Time Zones proposed returning to GMT. With more daylight in the morning and less in the evening, state residents might not stay up so late on work-nights. Once the state had been bailed out by the E.U. federal government after the financial crisis of 2008, Spain could ill-afford the continued loss of 8 percent of the state’s GNP due to productivity losses from the nocturnal proclivity that coincided with another cultural icon, the siesta. For our purposes here, why did it take decades even to propose the easily-rationalized correction even though it meant returning to a rule that had been in effect for decades before the rise of Nazi Germany.

Let’s travel across the Atlantic Ocean to Illinois, whose major metropolis is the bewindowed city of Chicago. The latest sunset there is at 8:30pm (20:30 hrs), which occurs during the last week of June. The sun rises during that week at around 5:15am, though relatively few Chicagoans are awake at 4:45 to witness daybreak. Bentham’s rule of utilitarianism would have us believe that the greatest good for the greatest number somehow matters in life. Might it be rather obvious that taking an hour of daylight during the summer from early morning and depositing it at the other end of the day, prolonging evening from turning into night, would be more optimal? Perhaps it is merely common sense that many more people could enjoy the hour of light in question were they awake to see it. This point would not be missed by many tourists from Spain. Why is it so difficult for the people losing out to become aware of what they could have in a better life?

Even moving another hour of daylight, such that sunrises would occur roughly between 7:00am and 7:30 during June and July (daylight before 7) and sunsets would be after 10:00pm (22:00hrs) would not unduly fine “morning people.” Yet this would mean a three-hour shift from standard time. Achieving even a 9:30pm sunset would entail a two-hour change (not necessarily on the same days). Lest such a proposal seem too catastrophic, the PSOE, a political party in Spain, established the addition of another hour in summer beginning in the 1980s.

Perhaps the fear of the unknown is assuaged by the news of the same unknown being part of the default somewhere else. Furthermore, perhaps what does not work in a state of one Union may work just fine in a state in another Union; even within an empire-scale Union diversity of clime and custom justify allowances for interstate differences (e.g., via federalism).

Perhaps, moreover, members of the homo sapiens species are “hard-wired” to prefer “missing out” in the face of even a relatively simple change that would add appreciably to the good for the greatest number. In this case, the good to be had is in terms not only of summer enjoyment in a clime whose long winters can keep the door open to extreme cold from the Arctic, but also of improved health (from more exercise en plein air) and greater safety (i.e., fewer muggings and rapes). Perhaps the over-riding lesson here is simply that making life a little better—a bit more enjoyable—need not be so difficult.

Dorothy, in The Wizard of Oz, could have used the magic slippers to return to Kansas at anytime. Unfortunately, she did not even ponder the possibility, and thus had to come to it the hard way. 

(Image Source: Hollywoodreporter.com)

I am reminded of Dorothy in the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz. The good witch of the North tells her at the end that she could have used her ruby shoes to return to Kansas at any time, but that she had to come to realize this herself. Perhaps the question for us is why we have such trouble in coming to realize that we, too, need not wait so long to effect change that we could have accomplished long before because it lies within our power. The pickle in all of this is that enough people in a given society must come to this self-empowering realization themselves for any movement to take place. For once a threshold is met, even a societal change can be effected surprisingly fast and much easier than expected or feared.

1. Jim Heintz and Angela Charlton, "Ukraine Parliament Boss Takes Presidential Powers," GlobalPost, February 23, 2014.

Spain’s Deficit: Violating E.U. Law

In early March, 2012, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy announced that Spain’s budget-deficit target would not be the 4.4% that had been promised by his predecessor to the E.U. Commission in 2011. Instead, the anticipated deficit in 2012 would be 5.8 percent.[1] That announcement put the state of Spain on a collision course with the enhanced enforcement of deficit limits by the Commission and the ECJ. Even though Rajoy had signed onto the added-enforcement “pact” a month before, he said of the 5.8 percent, “This is a sovereign decision made by Spain.”[2] A few days after his announcement E.U. finance officials met and accepted a 5.3% target.[3] Although it comes with a “tough deficit target” for 2013, one wonders whether the proposed strengthening of the “fiscal pact” will ever be enforced—and in a way that is fair to all of the states.

The complete essay is at Essays on Two Federal Empires.

1. Stephen Fidler, “Spain’s Move Tests Europe’s Mettle on Deficits,” The Wall Street Journal, March 10-11, 2012.

2. Ibid.

3. Matthew Dalton, “Euro-Zone Ministers Press Spain for a Deal on Deficits,” The Wall Street Journal, March 13, 2012.