Economic update

There has been plenty of economic and business data lately to demonstrate that the economy is slowly on the rise.

Some government officials (and members of the Federal Reserve) seem to want to take credit for this improvement, which is a little like the fabled rooster who believes that his pre-dawn crowing is responsible for making the sun come up.

It would be far more accurate to say that the economy is on the rise in spite of the mis-steps of government regulations and stimulus spending, and in spite of the Fed's excessively easy interest rates and previous rounds of quantitative easing. We've written several previous posts over the past year or more which outline the reasons to believe that.

On the other hand, there is also a segment of the media world -- especially the "conservative" media punditry -- which wants to deny that the economy is improving, in order to prevent the politicians from taking credit for it. In a sense, they are falling for the idea that the roosters really do make the sun rise, and in order to prevent them from getting credit for it, they want to argue that the sun is not really coming up. That is not a good position to take, particularly as the evidence becomes more and more difficult to deny. We've made this point on the pages of this blog in the past as well.

We've also explained that we are in the midst of a very important period of major technological transformation, one that is so big that even government would have a hard time messing it up. However, while it is probably beyond the power of the roosters to prevent the sun from coming up in this case, they may be able to make the sky a lot cloudier than it has to be, and prevent the day from being as bright and spring-like as it normally might have been.

In other words, although government should not get credit for making the economy improve, it can, through tinkering, create obstacles to economic growth. The way it does that is through excessive regulation and taxation, and unpredictable monetary policy. In fact, we do not believe government drives the economy at all, beyond its appropriate role of maintaining a stable rule of law and a stable money supply which enables enterprise to function in a predictable environment.

Below is a recent video clip of Taylor Frigon president and chief investment officer Gerry Frigon discussing some of these concerns, as well as some of the recent economic data.

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The "Unstoppable Wave" rolls into 2012

Here's a link to a terrific series of graphs from Bret Swanson of Entropy Economics, showing the amazing and exponential growth of internet traffic since 1990, in a way you've never seen before.

We've followed Bret's excellent analysis of technology-related subjects for many years, and wrote about an important article he authored along with George Gilder in a blog post back in February 2008 (over four years ago now!). While many unpredictable economic and political developments have taken place since then, the "exaflood" described in that article has rolled on as they predicted that it would. In fact, as we have written many times in the past, major paradigm shifts such as the one that George and Bret are talking about here are so big that even the politicians (and some of the players on Wall Street) cannot really derail them.

For a few recent posts on this subject, check out this post and this post.

We believe that every investor should consider this subject very carefully.

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The problem with "austerity" plans: Europe should cut spending AND cut tax rates

Rioters have been throwing Molotov cocktails and chunks of rock at police and setting buildings on fire in Greek cities to protest the latest round of "austerity measures" demanded by European lenders and agreed to by Greek leaders.

While we of course do not condone such violence (the perpetrators of which are most likely dead-set against capitalism and entrepreneurship as well as the rule of law which makes the beneficial effects of capitalism and entrepreneurship possible), we also believe that they are correct in their perception that the austerity measures will crush Greece and doom the Greek economy for decades.

It's not that "austerity" in the form of greatly reduced government spending is wrong -- in fact, as we have discussed many times previously such as in this post from 2010, Greece spends an unsustainable amount of money on pensions and medical benefits for retirees, who can retire with 80% of their "pensionable salary" plus medical benefits for the rest of their life, and who retire at an average age of 58. As Steve Forbes noted in an article we linked to in this post, it was not until 2010's debt problems that Greece finally decided to stop giving mandatory annual bonuses equivalent to an additional two months' pay to all government bureaucrats, but that even then the country did not eliminate a single public-sector civil servant job.

So a reduction of excessive spending (the general meaning conveyed by the word "austerity" in normal usage) is certainly necessary if Greece wants to be able to pay its debts in the future.

However, European "austerity" measures always include severe tax-rate increases at the same time, and the austerity measures being forced onto Greece are no different. Despite the fact that Greece already had much higher tax rates than its neighbors (a top income-tax rate of nearly 50%, compared to flat taxes of 10% in neighboring Bulgaria and Albania, as Steve Forbes pointed out in his article), the latest rounds of austerity demanded still more growth-killing taxation. This BBC article describing the tax-rate increases Greek leaders accepted at the end of last year lists the following:

• An increase in the existing "value-added tax" (VAT), such that the existing 19% rate will increase to 23%.
  
• An increase in the VAT assessed on all restaurants and bars, which were previously forced to charge 13% value-added tax, and will now have to charge 23%.
• A "solidarity levy" of between 1% and 5% on all households, depending upon income, to be increased two more times during 2012 (as Daniel Heninger explains in an opinion piece in today's Wall Street Journal, Europe often calls wealth taxes "solidarity taxes," saying "France has the world's most famous wealth tax. They call it 'the solidarity tax,' which is the Gallic equivalent of the Obama 'fair share.'")
• An increase in property tax rates.
• A 33% increase in excise taxes imposed on fuel, cigarettes, and alcohol (this would be in addition to the VAT taxes which were already assessed on all the layers of production of those goods before they reached the end consumer).
• A reduction or elimination of many existing tax exemptions.
• "Luxury levies" on yachts, swimming pools, and cars.
• And, in addition to all of the above, "special levies on profitable firms, high-value properties and people with high incomes."

If those calling for these increased tax rates really think they will actually increase the amount of taxes that the Greek government will collect, they are ignorant of economics. These new tax rates will only serve to further stifle economic growth in Greece and drive most of those who would try to start a business there into other countries instead. Amazingly, those are just the "austerity" measures Greece accepted at the end of 2011 -- they recently agreed to additional austerity.

Austerity measures that radically cut spending and radically cut tax rates would be much better for Greece and for any modern welfare state, including California and the rest of the US as well. Cutting tax rates is one of the most important ways to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and economic growth -- and encouraging those critical activities is the best way to create a healthy economy and a country that can pay the interest and principal on its borrowing. If you want to enable an individual borrower to pay back his debts in the future, you don't tell him to cut down on his spending while simultaneously making it impossible for him to get a job.

We have written about the importance of pro-growth policies in solving government debt problems many times in the past, such as in this important previous post. We can only conclude that European leaders may not be reading this blog. If you know any of them, you should perhaps consider sending them a link to today's post. It might not be a bad idea to send it to a few US leaders as well.

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The importance of focusing on business, Feb 2012

Gerry Frigon of Taylor Frigon Capital Management recently spoke about the importance of focusing on what is going on with the businesses of the individual companies to which one commits investment capital, rather than trying to guess the next geopolitical or economic move that will effect markets.

This is a theme we have often discussed in the past on the pages of this blog.

In the above video, he also balances that with some of the major structural issues that are important to keep an eye on out in the larger macro environment.

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Is today's positive employment data "intentionally fraudulent"?

Faulty analysis can lead to wildly incorrect conclusions, which can lead to bad decisions.

Today, the US Bureau of Labor and Statistics published their report on the employment data through the end of January, 2012, showing a huge increase in private payrolls (a gain of 257,000 according to the BLS, almost 100,000 more than economists were predicting).

For a variety of reasons, there has been no shortage of pundits in the media predicting economic doom and a double-dip recession in the past year -- in fact, since the economic recovery began in March of 2009. We have been on record as arguing that this pessimism is overblown, and that investors should be careful not to make bad decisions based upon such "sky is falling" analysis -- see for example this post published in June of last year entitled, "Do we have a 'dead economy walking?'"

With this latest positive jobs report, the pundits from the "sky is falling" school have arrived right on cue to declare that the employment situation is not really improving at all, and that the unemployment rate is only falling because "unprecedented" numbers of people "dropped out of the labor force" in January (see for example this article linked on the front page of the Drudge Report today in the center column near the top of the page).

Another article entitled "Employment Report: Blatant and Outrageous Lies" declares that the employment report is "intentionally fraudulent" for the same reason as the article from the Drudge page, saying that "0.6% of the entire labor force [. . .] departed the working population in one month, three times the alleged drop in the unemployment rate."

However, economist Brian Wesbury shows that these arguments are simply wrong, the product of bad analysis. In this essay on today's numbers, Mr. Wesbury explains that "the labor force actually increased in January from its December level." Noting the bad analysis in the article linked on Drudge, he says:

The reason Tyler and Drudge are confused about this is because they are looking at a statistic that measures the number of people of working age who are “not in the labor force.” This number did jump by 1.2 million in January. However, any analyst should look deeper into the data before making outrageous claims. [. . .]

Every once in a while the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) makes catch-up adjustments to its underlying data. Often, but not always, this happens in January. This time the BLS added 1.7 million people to its estimate of the working age population.

However, as economist Wesbury tells us, when the BLS adds a catch-up statistic of this sort, it estimates how many of the newly-added headcount consists of people who are employed and how many are not:

For the month of January, the BLS said that of the 1.7 million new people it counted, 500,000 were in the labor force and 1.2 million were not. To say, as Drudge and Tyler Durden did, that the labor force fell by 1.2 million is a basic and frightening misuse of statistics. It’s simply not true and it is leading many people astray.

Investors who listen to the analysis in the media should be very aware of the possibility of bad analysis, especially when there are underlying assumptions which might cause pressure to conform data into a preconceived narrative (in this case, a narrative that the economy cannot possibly be improving).

Mr. Wesbury has done investors a tremendous service in spotting this faulty analysis and explaining why it is wrong.

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