Old economists can teach us new tricks
It is time for US business and government to embrace Galbraith’s pragmatic approach
Rana Foroohar
© Matt Kenyon
Economists’ reputations, like skirt lengths, go in and out of fashion. In the past 10 years, John Maynard Keynes has received fresh appreciation, and Hyman Minsky has been having a moment.
I think it’s time for John Kenneth Galbraith to have his. The late liberal economist’s “concept of countervailing power”, put forth in his 1952 book American Capitalism, is a critique of the “market knows best” view that has dominated the US political economy since the era of Ronald Reagan. There could not be a better time to re-read it.
Despite the much discussed rise of millennial “socialists” (to my mind they are not, really), Americans still fundamentally accept the idea that the private sector always allocates resources more efficiently than the public sector. It is a truism that dies hard, even amid what feels like a drumbeat of boardroom scandal, an explosion in unproductive corporate debt, and an inverted yield curve for Treasuries that suggests investors fear a recession is coming.
Policymakers across the political spectrum agree on what we need to create real and lasting growth — decent infrastructure, a 21st-century education system, healthcare reform.
Yet these are things that the private market has little incentive to address. Building roads and running schools and hospitals (at least the non-profit kind) simply isn’t as lucrative as throwing up luxury condos or engaging in financial speculation.
As Galbraith would have agreed, private markets also are not well set up to address the broad economic and social externalities of climate change or the effects of income inequality.
One obvious example is that burgeoning student debt has become a headwind to overall economic growth. Market prices cannot capture the full costs of these problems.
Galbraith also would have argued that corporations can be just as bureaucratic and dysfunctional — if not more so — than government. His 1967 book The New Industrial State explored how large companies are driven more by their need to survive as organisational entities than by supply and demand signals.
He predicted that innovation and entrepreneurial zeal would decline as such organisations rose. That is exactly what happened as our economy became dominated by superstar companies.
Look at any number of troubled behemoths — from GE to Kraft Heinz to Boeing — and it is hard not see exactly what Galbraith predicted. In an endless search for profits, many companies simply move money around on their balance sheets, creating a short-term financial sugar high without real innovation.
We live in a world in which markets cannot handle even a tiny rise in interest rates without plunging, and when the savings from tax cuts went not into new capital investment but share buybacks, which were also fuelled by debt issued at those very same low rates. Can anyone really argue that the private markets are allocating resources efficiently?
I am not saying that we need centralised planning. Galbraith once put it well: “I react pragmatically. Where the market works, I’m for that. Where the government is necessary, I’m for that. I’m deeply suspicious of somebody who says, ‘I’m in favour of privatisation,’ or ‘I’m deeply in favour of public ownership’. I’m in favour of whatever works in the particular case.”
Politicians and policymakers on both sides of the aisle should sear these words on their brains. Americans don’t really do nuance. We like strong, simple statements, such as Reagan’s observation that: “The government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.”
But the “private good, public bad” argument simply isn’t true. How else can we explain the rise of China? It has not only shown that government planning and economic competitiveness cannot only go hand in hand, but that in the current era of tech-based disruption and inequality, public sector support may be necessary for the private sector to thrive.
It is time for political conservatives, economic neoliberals, and chief executives to embrace this. I find it endlessly frustrating to hear so many American corporate leaders complain that government cannot get anything done, even as they pay expensive accountants to keep as much wealth as possible out of state tax coffers.
It is time to admit that endless tax cuts have not put more money into the real economy, despite frequent, incorrect claims from businesses that they would create lasting above-trend growth. Rather, they have led to pitted highways and hazardous bridges that rival those one might find in any number of far poorer countries. The US ranks 31st out of 70 countries on the OECD’s Pisa test for mathematics, science and reading.
Let us try something new. Let us stop assuming that markets always know best. Let us pay our taxes, modernise our social safety nets, regulate markets properly, enforce antitrust to protect the overall economic ecosystem and not just the largest businesses, and reinvent our social compact.
This is not socialism. It is smarter capitalism. The majority may not yet believe that. But as Galbraith is often quoted as saying: “In economics, the majority is always wrong.”
In part I of this research post, we highlighted how the shifting landscape of the US real estate market may be setting up an incredible trading opportunity for technical traders. It is our belief that the continued capital shift which has been driving foreign investment into US assets, real estate, and other investments may be shifting away from US real estate as tell-tale signs of stress are starting to show. Foreclosures and price drops are one of the first signs that stress exists in the markets and we believe the real estate segment could be setting up for an incredible trade opportunity.
SRS, the Proshares Ultrashort Real Estate EFT has recently completed a unique “washout low” price bottom that we believe may become an incredible trading opportunity for technical traders. If the US Fed pushes the market into a panic mode, sellers will become even more desperate to offload their homes and buyers will become even more discerning in terms of selecting what and when to buy.
Our opinion is that the recent “washout low” price bottom in SRS is very likely to be a unique “scouting party” low/bottom that may set up a very big move to the upside over the next 4 to 12+ months. If our research is correct, the continued forward navigation for the US Fed, global central banks and the average consumers buying and selling homes is about to become very volatile.
If SRS moves above the $25.50 level, our first upside Fibonacci price target and clears the $24.25 previous peak set in April 2019, it would be a very clear indication that a risk trade in Real Estate is back in play. Ideally, price holding above the $21.65 level would provide a very clear level of support negating any future price weakness below $21.50.
This weekly SRS chart highlights what we believe to be the optimal BUY ZONE and the upside price targets near $28 to $29. Since the bottom in 2009-10, after the credit market crisis, we have not seen any substantial risk in the Real Estate market for over 8+ years. Now, though, it is our opinion that this risk trade is very real and that technical trader should be aware of this potential move and what it means to protect assets and wealth.
If our research proves to be accurate and any future move by the US Fed will prompt a “rush to the exits” by home sellers, then there is really only one course of action left for us to consider. Either the Fed will reduce rates, buying some at-risk sellers a bit of time before a rush to sell overwhelms the markets and prices begin a fast decline in an attempt to secure quick buyers; or the Fed will leave rates at current levels where at-risk sellers will continue to attempt to offload their homes to any willing buyers before declining prices and panicked sellers start the “race to the bottom” in terms of pricing.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS:
Real Estate has already run through the price advance cycle and the price maturity cycle.There is really only one cycle left to unfold at this point – the “price revaluation cycle”. This is where the opportunity lies with our suggested SRS trade setup.
We believe this bottom in SRS will result in a few more weeks of trading near price support (above $20 and below $22.50) where traders will be able to acquire their positions. The bigger move will happen as risk becomes more evident – very similar to what has recently happened in Gold. Once that risk is visible to traders/investors, the upside potentials ($28+ to $42+) won’t seem so illogical any longer.
I can tell you that huge moves are about to start unfolding not only in real estate, but metals, stocks, and currencies. Some of these super cycles are going to last years.
