Swiss banks ban top executive travel
By Richard Milne in Geneva
Published: March 26 2009 19:08 Last updated: March 26 2009 19:08
Switzerland’s private banks have started to ban their top executives from travelling abroad, even to neighbouring France and Germany, because of fears they will be detained as part of a global crackdown on bank secrecy.
The head of one leading private bank in Geneva said the growing determination of countries such as the US and Germany to tackle tax evasion and secrecy meant banks felt they had to take extra measures to protect employees.
“Some banks have taken this precaution,” he said. “If today I go to Germany to visit two banks I deal with...German customs can take me in and question me.”
The travel bans, which have not been brought in by all banks, have focused on those visiting the US, following the detention there last year of a senior private banker from UBS, Switzerland’s biggest bank, as part of a federal tax investigation.
The head of the private bank, which itself has no travel restrictions, said: “Today if you are a banker from Switzerland going to the US you have to fear you will be taken in for questioning. I am thinking twice about going to America.”
However, four people in the private banking industry in Geneva told the Financial Times of banks bringing in total travel bans for staff, even for adjoining European countries.
“Private bankers aren’t even travelling to France. The partners are not leaving Geneva at all,” said a senior industry figure close to several private banks. No bank contacted by the Financial Times wanted to discuss the matter publicly.
The restrictions come ahead of next week’s Group of 20 summit where a clampdown on tax havens is set to be discussed.
Under pressure from other countries, Switzerland, which is estimated to account for about a third of the world’s $11,000bn in clandestine personal wealth, agreed this month to ease its bank secrecy laws and accept international standards on tax transparency.
From their discreet offices on a luxury goods shopping street overlooking Lac Leman, private bankers in Geneva reacted this week with a mixture of intense anger, at what they see as an unjustified attack by big countries, and concern about the threat to their business model.
“It is not really about bank secrecy; it is about solving an internal problem [for the big countries] by finding an enemy outside to bash,” said one senior banker.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Trades 3/25/9
| Rank | |||
| 4 | USD/CHF | Buy | 1.1847 |
| 3 | GBP/JPY | Buy | 145.22 |
| 2 | AUD/USD | Buy | 0.7066 |
| 1 | AUD/JPY | Buy | 70.16 |
EU president calls Obama's plans to spend his way out of recession 'the road to hell'
BRUSSELS (AP) -- The head of the European Union slammed President Barack Obama's plan to spend nearly $2 trillion to push the U.S. economy out of recession as "the road to hell" that EU governments must avoid.
The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy.
It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.
Shocked by the outburst, other European politicians went into damage control mode, with some reproaching the Czech leader for his language and others reaffirming their good diplomatic ties with the United States. The leaders of EU's major nations -- France, Britain and Germany, among others -- largely ignored Topolanek and his remarks.
Obama pays his first official visit to Europe next week, aiming to thrash out reforms to the global financial system with the Group of 20 nations and call on NATO allies to commit more troops to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Europeans leaders hope the new U.S. administration will agree with them on tightening oversight over the global financial system -- which they see as crucial to fixing the global economy.
Instead, the United States is focusing its efforts on economic stimulus and plans to spend heavily to try and lift itself out of recession with a $787 billion plan of tax rebates, health and welfare benefits, as well as extra energy and infrastructure spending.
To encourage banks to lend again, the U.S. government will also pump $1 trillion into the financial system by buying up treasury bonds and mortgage securities in an effort to clear some of the "toxic assets" -- devalued and untradeable assets -- from banks' balance sheets.
Obama insisted Tuesday that his massive budget proposal will put the ailing U.S. economy back on its feet. "This budget is inseparable from this recovery," he said, "because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity."
But Topolanek took aim at Washington's deficit spending.
"All of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the road to hell," Topolanek said. "We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way."
"Americans will need liquidity to finance all their measures and they will balance this with the sale of their bonds but this will undermine the liquidity of the global financial market," Topolanek said.
Topolanek spoke the day after he was ousted by his own parliament. The Czech Republic currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency but its leadership is in question, with Topolanek hanging on to a caretaker government at home after losing a "no confidence" Tuesday.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said he did not expect the Czech poltical turmoil to affect Obama's upcoming trip to Prague because the president was traveling to attend an EU event.
Analyst Nicolas Veron, a research fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said Topolanek's view is not widely shared by EU leaders.
"I don't think the damage can be as large as the very strong wording of this would lead one to think," he said. "Many people have doubts about the U.S. plan but what he said is much stronger."
Veron said European leaders worry that the U.S. plan may not work or could cost taxpayers heavily -- but he did not doubt the U.S.' "fiscal robustness" or that it still had extra room to maneuver to stoke economic growth.
Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist group in the European parliament, immediately chided Topolanek, saying his comments were "not the level on which the EU ought to be operating with the United States."
"You have not understood what the task of the EU presidency is," he told the Czech premier.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also said it was "not helpful ... to try to suggest that Americans and Europeans are coming with very different approaches to the crisis."
"On the contrary, what we are seeing is increased convergence," he told the parliament.
But Europe's resistance to the U.S. call for new stimulus measures is starting to weaken despite Germany's fierce opposition to any new spending program this year.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday he is prepared to support the economy with a new spending package. EU officials say they can't rule anything out -- even an EU-wide stimulus that could help nations like Ireland and Spain, which can't afford any extra stimulus.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also supported U.S. calls to ramp up fiscal stimulus -- government spending and tax cuts -- although the Bank of England has warned that Britain's swelling public deficit may make it unable to afford new spending.
The blunt comments by Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek to the European Parliament on Wednesday highlighted simmering European differences with Washington ahead of a key summit next week on fixing the world economy.
It was the strongest pushback yet from a European leader as the 27-nation bloc bristles from U.S. criticism that it is not spending enough to stimulate demand.
Shocked by the outburst, other European politicians went into damage control mode, with some reproaching the Czech leader for his language and others reaffirming their good diplomatic ties with the United States. The leaders of EU's major nations -- France, Britain and Germany, among others -- largely ignored Topolanek and his remarks.
Obama pays his first official visit to Europe next week, aiming to thrash out reforms to the global financial system with the Group of 20 nations and call on NATO allies to commit more troops to the U.S. war in Afghanistan.
Europeans leaders hope the new U.S. administration will agree with them on tightening oversight over the global financial system -- which they see as crucial to fixing the global economy.
Instead, the United States is focusing its efforts on economic stimulus and plans to spend heavily to try and lift itself out of recession with a $787 billion plan of tax rebates, health and welfare benefits, as well as extra energy and infrastructure spending.
To encourage banks to lend again, the U.S. government will also pump $1 trillion into the financial system by buying up treasury bonds and mortgage securities in an effort to clear some of the "toxic assets" -- devalued and untradeable assets -- from banks' balance sheets.
Obama insisted Tuesday that his massive budget proposal will put the ailing U.S. economy back on its feet. "This budget is inseparable from this recovery," he said, "because it is what lays the foundation for a secure and lasting prosperity."
But Topolanek took aim at Washington's deficit spending.
"All of these steps, these combinations and permanency is the road to hell," Topolanek said. "We need to read the history books and the lessons of history and the biggest success of the (EU) is the refusal to go this way."
"Americans will need liquidity to finance all their measures and they will balance this with the sale of their bonds but this will undermine the liquidity of the global financial market," Topolanek said.
Topolanek spoke the day after he was ousted by his own parliament. The Czech Republic currently holds the six-month rotating EU presidency but its leadership is in question, with Topolanek hanging on to a caretaker government at home after losing a "no confidence" Tuesday.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid said he did not expect the Czech poltical turmoil to affect Obama's upcoming trip to Prague because the president was traveling to attend an EU event.
Analyst Nicolas Veron, a research fellow at the Bruegel think tank, said Topolanek's view is not widely shared by EU leaders.
"I don't think the damage can be as large as the very strong wording of this would lead one to think," he said. "Many people have doubts about the U.S. plan but what he said is much stronger."
Veron said European leaders worry that the U.S. plan may not work or could cost taxpayers heavily -- but he did not doubt the U.S.' "fiscal robustness" or that it still had extra room to maneuver to stoke economic growth.
Martin Schulz, leader of the Socialist group in the European parliament, immediately chided Topolanek, saying his comments were "not the level on which the EU ought to be operating with the United States."
"You have not understood what the task of the EU presidency is," he told the Czech premier.
EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso also said it was "not helpful ... to try to suggest that Americans and Europeans are coming with very different approaches to the crisis."
"On the contrary, what we are seeing is increased convergence," he told the parliament.
But Europe's resistance to the U.S. call for new stimulus measures is starting to weaken despite Germany's fierce opposition to any new spending program this year.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Tuesday he is prepared to support the economy with a new spending package. EU officials say they can't rule anything out -- even an EU-wide stimulus that could help nations like Ireland and Spain, which can't afford any extra stimulus.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has also supported U.S. calls to ramp up fiscal stimulus -- government spending and tax cuts -- although the Bank of England has warned that Britain's swelling public deficit may make it unable to afford new spending.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Trades 3/23
Use tight pips on all trades
| Rank | |||
| 4 | EUR/USD | Buy | 1.3761 |
| 3 | EUR/JPY | Buy | 134.22 |
| 5 | GBP/USD | Buy | 1.4747 |
| 2 | AUD/USD | Buy | 0.7111 |
| 1 | AUD/JPY | Buy | 69.82 |
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Long Term 3/19
| Rank | Stop | ||||||
| 1 | EUR/USD | Buy | 3/17/2009 | 1.3035 | |||
| 2 | EUR/JPY | Buy | 3/16/2009 | 124.43 | |||
| 5 | USD/CHF | Sell | 1.1142 | NEW | |||
| 6 | GBP/JPY | Buy | 2/23/2009 | 134.16 | |||
| 3 | AUD/USD | Buy | 0.6958 | NEW | |||
| 4 | AUD/JPY | Buy | 3/16/2009 | 63.03 | |||
| 7 | CAD/JPY | Buy | EXIT | 76.17 |
Short Term 3/19/9
| Rank | |||||
| 1 | EUR/USD | Buy | 1.3763 | ||
| 3 | EUR/JPY | Buy | 130.47 | ||
| 2 | USD/CHF | Sell | 1.1142 | ||
| 5 | GBP/USD | Buy | 1.4645 | ||
| 4 | AUD/USD | Buy | 0.6958 | ||
| 6 | AUD/JPY | Buy | 65.82 |
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Trades 3/17
Long Term Trades
New EUR/USD Trade can be used as a day trade.
Rank Stop
2 EUR/USD Buy 1.3095 NEW
1 EUR/JPY Buy 3/16/2009 123.47
3 USD/CHF Sell 2/10/2009 1.1683
USD/CAD Buy EXIT 1.2700
5 USD/JPY Buy 2/17/2009 92.50
4 GBP/JPY Sell 2/23/2009 136.73
6 AUD/JPY Buy 3/16/2009 62.64
7 CAD/JPY Buy 2/23/2009 76.17
New EUR/USD Trade can be used as a day trade.
Rank Stop
2 EUR/USD Buy 1.3095 NEW
1 EUR/JPY Buy 3/16/2009 123.47
3 USD/CHF Sell 2/10/2009 1.1683
USD/CAD Buy EXIT 1.2700
5 USD/JPY Buy 2/17/2009 92.50
4 GBP/JPY Sell 2/23/2009 136.73
6 AUD/JPY Buy 3/16/2009 62.64
7 CAD/JPY Buy 2/23/2009 76.17
Monday, March 16, 2009
trades 3/16/9
| Rank | ||||
| 2 | EUR/USD | Buy | 1.3083 | |
| 1 | EUR/JPY | Buy | 128.16 | |
| 5 | USD/JPY | Buy | 98.84 | |
| 4 | GBP/JPY | Buy | 140.17 | |
| 3 | AUD/JPY | Buy | 65.61 | |
| 6 | CAD/JPY | Buy | 78.09 |
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Trades 3/15/2009
These are my long term trades. There are 2 new trades for today. These 2 trades could also be used as a quick daily trade.
| Rank | ||||||
| 4 | EUR/JPY | Buy | 127.80 | NEW TRADE | ||
| 3 | USD/CHF | Buy | 2/10/2009 | |||
| 5 | USD/CAD | Buy | 3/2/2009 | |||
| 1 | USD/JPY | Buy | 2/17/2009 | |||
| GBP/USD | Sell | 3/2/2009 | ||||
| 6 | GBP/JPY | Buy | 2/23/2009 | |||
| 2 | AUD/JPY | Buy | 65.21 | NEW TRADE | ||
| 7 | CAD/JPY | Buy | 2/23/2009 | |||
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Current Long Terms Positions
Current Long Term Positions
| Rank | ||||
| 5 | USD/CHF | Buy | ||
| 2 | USD/CAD | Buy | ||
| 1 | USD/JPY | Buy | ||
| 3 | GBP/USD | Sell | ||
| 4 | GBP/JPY | Buy | ||
| 6 | CAD/JPY | Buy |
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Sunday, March 8, 2009
Friday, March 6, 2009
Obama Economic Destruction
It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.
The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.
Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.
To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The specific problems, however, far outweigh the positives. First are the quite optimistic forecasts, despite the higher taxes and government micromanagement that will harm the economy. The budget projects a much shallower recession and stronger recovery than private forecasters or the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are projecting. It implies a vast amount of additional spending and higher taxes, above and beyond even these record levels. For example, it calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional "resources" needed "TBD" (to be determined).
Mr. Obama has bravely said he will deal with the projected deficits in Medicare and Social Security. While reform of these programs is vital, the president has shown little interest in reining in the growth of real spending per beneficiary, and he has rejected increasing the retirement age. Instead, he's proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit.
Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the rates quadruples the harm). The president claims he is only hitting 2% of the population, but many more will at some point be in these brackets.
As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax would be far better.
Moreover, the president's energy proposals radically underestimate the time frame for bringing alternatives plausibly to scale. His own Energy Department estimates we will need a lot more oil and gas in the meantime, necessitating $11 trillion in capital investment to avoid permanently higher prices.
The president proposes a large defense drawdown to pay for exploding nondefense outlays -- similar to those of Presidents Carter and Clinton -- which were widely perceived by both Republicans and Democrats as having gone too far, leaving large holes in our military. We paid a high price for those mistakes and should not repeat them.
The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets rebound.
A similar effect will exacerbate tax flight from states like California and New York, which rely on steeply progressive income taxes collecting a large fraction of revenue from a small fraction of their residents. This attack on decentralization permeates the budget -- e.g., killing the private fee-for-service Medicare option -- and will curtail the experimentation, innovation and competition that provide a road map to greater effectiveness.
The pervasive government subsidies and mandates -- in health, pharmaceuticals, energy and the like -- will do a poor job of picking winners and losers (ask the Japanese or Europeans) and will be difficult to unwind as recipients lobby for continuation and expansion. Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means that more and more of our best entrepreneurs, managers and workers will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of consumers.
Our competitors have lower corporate tax rates and tax only domestic earnings, yet the budget seeks to restrict deferral of taxes on overseas earnings, arguing it drives jobs overseas. But the academic research (most notably by Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James Hines Jr.) reveals the opposite: American firms' overseas investments strengthen their domestic operations and employee compensation.
New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.
From the poorly designed stimulus bill and vague new financial rescue plan, to the enormous expansion of government spending, taxes and debt somehow permanently strengthening economic growth, the assumptions underlying the president's economic program seem bereft of rigorous analysis and a careful reading of history.
Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster.
On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for, but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is not.
Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.
The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents -- John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance -- President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown.
Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again, relative to GDP). And all of this before addressing the impending explosion in Social Security and Medicare costs.
To be fair, specific parts of the president's budget are admirable and deserve support: increased means-testing in agriculture and medical payments; permanent indexing of the alternative minimum tax and other tax reductions; recognizing the need for further financial rescue and likely losses thereon; and bringing spending into the budget that was previously in supplemental appropriations, such as funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The specific problems, however, far outweigh the positives. First are the quite optimistic forecasts, despite the higher taxes and government micromanagement that will harm the economy. The budget projects a much shallower recession and stronger recovery than private forecasters or the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office are projecting. It implies a vast amount of additional spending and higher taxes, above and beyond even these record levels. For example, it calls for a down payment on universal health care, with the additional "resources" needed "TBD" (to be determined).
Mr. Obama has bravely said he will deal with the projected deficits in Medicare and Social Security. While reform of these programs is vital, the president has shown little interest in reining in the growth of real spending per beneficiary, and he has rejected increasing the retirement age. Instead, he's proposed additional taxes on earnings above the current payroll tax cap of $106,800 -- a bad policy that would raise marginal tax rates still further and barely dent the long-run deficit.
Increasing the top tax rates on earnings to 39.6% and on capital gains and dividends to 20% will reduce incentives for our most productive citizens and small businesses to work, save and invest -- with effective rates higher still because of restrictions on itemized deductions and raising the Social Security cap. As every economics student learns, high marginal rates distort economic decisions, the damage from which rises with the square of the rates (doubling the rates quadruples the harm). The president claims he is only hitting 2% of the population, but many more will at some point be in these brackets.
As for energy policy, the president's cap-and-trade plan for CO2 would ensnare a vast network of covered sources, opening up countless opportunities for political manipulation, bureaucracy, or worse. It would likely exacerbate volatility in energy prices, as permit prices soar in booms and collapse in busts. The European emissions trading system has been a dismal failure. A direct, transparent carbon tax would be far better.
Moreover, the president's energy proposals radically underestimate the time frame for bringing alternatives plausibly to scale. His own Energy Department estimates we will need a lot more oil and gas in the meantime, necessitating $11 trillion in capital investment to avoid permanently higher prices.
The president proposes a large defense drawdown to pay for exploding nondefense outlays -- similar to those of Presidents Carter and Clinton -- which were widely perceived by both Republicans and Democrats as having gone too far, leaving large holes in our military. We paid a high price for those mistakes and should not repeat them.
The president's proposed limitations on the value of itemized deductions for those in the top tax brackets would clobber itemized charitable contributions, half of which are by those at the top. This change effectively increases the cost to the donor by roughly 20% (to just over 72 cents from 60 cents per dollar donated). Estimates of the responsiveness of giving to after-tax prices range from a bit above to a little below proportionate, so reductions in giving will be large and permanent, even after the recession ends and the financial markets rebound.
A similar effect will exacerbate tax flight from states like California and New York, which rely on steeply progressive income taxes collecting a large fraction of revenue from a small fraction of their residents. This attack on decentralization permeates the budget -- e.g., killing the private fee-for-service Medicare option -- and will curtail the experimentation, innovation and competition that provide a road map to greater effectiveness.
The pervasive government subsidies and mandates -- in health, pharmaceuticals, energy and the like -- will do a poor job of picking winners and losers (ask the Japanese or Europeans) and will be difficult to unwind as recipients lobby for continuation and expansion. Expanding the scale and scope of government largess means that more and more of our best entrepreneurs, managers and workers will spend their time and talent chasing handouts subject to bureaucratic diktats, not the marketplace needs and wants of consumers.
Our competitors have lower corporate tax rates and tax only domestic earnings, yet the budget seeks to restrict deferral of taxes on overseas earnings, arguing it drives jobs overseas. But the academic research (most notably by Mihir Desai, C. Fritz Foley and James Hines Jr.) reveals the opposite: American firms' overseas investments strengthen their domestic operations and employee compensation.
New and expanded refundable tax credits would raise the fraction of taxpayers paying no income taxes to almost 50% from 38%. This is potentially the most pernicious feature of the president's budget, because it would cement a permanent voting majority with no stake in controlling the cost of general government.
From the poorly designed stimulus bill and vague new financial rescue plan, to the enormous expansion of government spending, taxes and debt somehow permanently strengthening economic growth, the assumptions underlying the president's economic program seem bereft of rigorous analysis and a careful reading of history.
Unfortunately, our history suggests new government programs, however noble the intent, more often wind up delivering less, more slowly, at far higher cost than projected, with potentially damaging unintended consequences. The most recent case, of course, was the government's meddling in the housing market to bring home ownership to low-income families, which became a prime cause of the current economic and financial disaster.
On the growth effects of a large expansion of government, the European social welfare states present a window on our potential future: standards of living permanently 30% lower than ours. Rounding off perceived rough edges of our economic system may well be called for, but a major, perhaps irreversible, step toward a European-style social welfare state with its concomitant long-run economic stagnation is not.
Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. He chaired the Council of Economic Advisers under President George H.W. Bush.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
3/4/2009
| Rank | |||||
| 6 | EUR/USD | Sell | 1.2434 | ||
| 7 | EUR/JPY | Sell | 115.34 | ||
| 2 | USD/CHF | Buy | 1.1847 | ||
| 3 | USD/CAD | Buy | 1.2993 | ||
| 1 | USD/JPY | Buy | 99.69 | ||
| 4 | GBP/USD | Sell | 1.3932 | ||
| 5 | GBP/JPY | Buy | 140.98 |
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
3/3/2009
| Rank | |||||
| 4 | EUR/USD | Sell | 1.2498 | ||
| 5 | USD/CHF | Buy | 1.1816 | ||
| 3 | USD/CAD | Buy | 1.2993 | ||
| 2 | USD/JPY | Buy | 98.77 | ||
| 1 | GBP/USD | Sell | 1.3932 | ||
| 7 | GBP/JPY | Sell | 135.41 | ||
| 6 | AUD/USD | Sell | 0.6270 | ||
| 8 | AUD/JPY | Sell | 60.81 |
Monday, March 2, 2009
3/2/9
| Rank | |||||
| 8 | EUR/USD | Sell | 1.2516 | ||
| 5 | USD/CHF | Buy | 1.1803 | ||
| 3 | USD/CAD | Buy | 1.2956 | ||
| 4 | USD/JPY | Buy | 98.90 | ||
| 1 | GBP/USD | Sell | 1.3908 | ||
| 6 | GBP/JPY | Sell | 135.42 | ||
| 2 | AUD/USD | Sell | 0.6272 | ||
| 7 | AUD/JPY | Sell | 60.81 |
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