MonopolyWatch: Thames Water’s Counting Difficulties

Our vision: If customers had a choice, they would choose Thames Water.
- signoff on email from Do.Not.Reply@thameswater.co.uk.

I don’t know why that quote creases me up, since it expresses a very sensible aspiration. Maybe it’s because it could be so easily adapted: “Our vision: If voters had a choice, they would vote National Socialist/Communist/United Russia [delete as applicable]“. Or maybe it’s just my sense of humour.

I’ve recently had to move home, so am experiencing no end of hassle, in large part in dealing with various utilities and suppliers. This has led me to formulate a hypothesis: the level of incompetence of an organisation is directly correlated with the extent of its monopoly.

So, as an aside within this inaugural MonopolyWatch newsletter, perhaps US car rental customers should start to worry with Reuters reporting that:

“Hertz Global Holdings [has] agreed to buy rival Dollar Thrifty Automotive Group for about $2.3 billion in a deal that puts about 95 percent of the U.S. car rental market in the hands of three companies.”

Why do we allow takeovers, such as of Dollar Thrifty by Hertz? Do we really believe that 3 choices is enough to ensure healthy competition throughout the entire US? It seems to me that in most markets the presence of at least 10 suppliers is necessary to provide sufficient consumer choice and drive continual quality and feature improvements and cost reductions. Surely “consolidation” across industries such as car rental is driven almost entirely by large organisations seeking to achieve a greater degree of monopoly power? So why don’t we – or at least our elected representatives and public officials responsible for the health of the overall economy – resist this process more strongly?

Back to Thames Water. They’re not the worst, but not far from it. Ealing Council, for example, have no rule for deciding who pays the Council Tax on the day you move. Or perhaps they do have a rule, but don’t understand it! Let me explain: you don’t move in or out at midnight, but Council Tax applies – and there seems to be little disagreement on this point – per calendar day, i.e. from midnight to midnight. In fact, likely you formally move some time around midday, let’s say at 11am on 16th August, for the sake of argument. So who pays the Council Tax for 16th August, the person moving out or the person moving in? Simple enough, you’d have thought. (For the record, I’d expect the rule to be along the lines of hotel room bookings, i.e. the person moving in on 16th pays the Council Tax for 16th, just as if you booked a hotel room for “the night of 16th” that would be the night starting on 16th and ending on 17th!).

How could Thames Water match this? Well, they make a clear distinction on their website between customers moving within their catchment area and those moving outside it:

Clearly, if moving out of Thames’ catchment area means you “need to close your account”, the implication is that moving within the catchment area keeps it open. They even ask you for a moving-in date to the new property. This makes some sense, since there may, as in my case, be an overlap, i.e. the rental for the new place started before the one for the old place ended. I don’t think it’s just me being pedantic: asking for information about where you are moving implies Thames are going to carry the account over, as, for example, Virgin Media do (more about those scum another time).

But whoever is moving out from the new property will also have told Thames you are moving in. Does Thames’ website sort this out in some intelligent manner, e.g. by overriding or matching the names provided by the previous resident at the new property? Seemingly not.

And does Thames’ website ask if you want to carry over your Direct Debit when you move? Nope.

So, after telling Thames where I was moving, I then received a letter inviting me to pay by Direct Debit. Has this resulted from me telling them I’ve moved or from the the landlord telling them I’ve moved in? No idea.

Do Thames reassure customers in any way that they will not be billed twice for the property they are moving to. No.

Is it actually possible I could even end up paying twice? Who knows?

Since I now have a new account number and have had to set up a new payment arrangement, is there any sense in which the account at my previous address has not been closed as if I’d moved out of Thames’ catchment area? Seemingly not.

Nevertheless, I dutifully went on line and set up a Direct Debit to Thames. This is where the tale really takes off. What day of the month did I want to pay on? I selected 15th. But when I went to the next screen the form showed 14th. So I pressed “Back”. Big mistake.

This screen-grab shows what I saw next:

Yeap, no “14″. So “15″ is interpreted as 14th in the list, I guess.

Thinking maybe I’d inadvertently selected 14 instead of 15 the first time and that Thames’ had implemented a new form of drop-down list omitting the current selection, I selected 15 again. No dice: the next page still showed 14.

I decided to settle for paying on 14th. And guess what? That wasn’t the only problem with this one simple web page. No sirree. Even though all the data I’d entered – name, address, bank account etc – was showing on the screen, the software didn’t think it was there. I had to enter it all again.

On one level it is a bit odd having alternative gas and electricity suppliers all selling an identical product, coming along the same pipes or wires. Given no differences in what is supplied, one should expect little difference in prices. But at least you can choose energy suppliers that are competent in handling the billing process. Why not allow the same for water?

We Need Rules, not Rulers: Culture, Bankers and the Mervyn King Question

The aim of any self-respecting blogger is to make original points. I’m no exception, so it is time to start to wind down this thread on the Libor “scandal” (previous instalments: Saint Mervyn: King by Name, King by Nature; Bashing Barclays Badly and Battling for Mount LIBOR, the Moral High Ground), for the world has in many respects come round to my way of thinking.

Yesterday’s City a.m. egged on the politicians with the momentarily confusing headline:

MPs CALL FOR CAP ON KING’S POWER

and opening salvo:

“REGULATORS grossly overreached themselves by forcing Bob Diamond out of the top job at Barclays, top backbench MP Andrew Tyrie declared yesterday…”

And the refrain “Who will guard the guards?” echoes through the land (and I noticed has even seeped, with the rapid mutation typical of memes, into the consciousness of the brigade of the commentariat more concerned with the easy target of the G4S Olympic security fiasco).

One of our heroes, already mentioned in despatches from the front-line, Hugo Dixon, has another piece on his Reuters blog, discussing how the Governor might be reined in:

“Holding the next governor accountable will be as important as choosing one. The Bank of England was rightly given considerable independence in 1997 to prevent politicians meddling in monetary policy in order to advance their electoral interests. But the institution and its leader have slipped up on enough occasions that leaving them entirely to their own devices isn’t a good option either.

For example, King didn’t sound the alarm loudly enough during the credit bubble and was slow to act when there was a run on Northern Rock, the mortgage bank, in 2007. He then long resisted any investigations into the Bank of England’s own failings in managing the crisis. Now its hands-off approach to the Libor scandal is being revealed.

Based purely on its record, the central bank wouldn’t be receiving extra powers. However, the Conservative-led government has tried to pin the blame for the credit crunch on the previous Labour government’s policies – in particular, its decision to take away the central bank’s responsibility for banking supervision. Hence, it has become politically convenient to reverse that move.

Given this, the priority should be to enhance the Bank of England’s accountability. Under the current system, the government sets inflation targets and picks the governor. It also chooses the deputy governors and members of two committees: the monetary policy committee which sets interest rates; and the financial policy committee which will soon be responsible for financial stability. Their independent members help prevent the governor becoming too dominant.

The Bank of England also has a board, called the Court. But this has been largely ineffective. Though it has recently stepped up its scrutiny of the central bank’s executives, it is hamstrung because it rightly has no say over policy or who is the governor.

Meanwhile, parliament can call the governor and other senior officials in to give evidence. Although this is a potentially important check to the central bank’s power, MPs haven’t yet used this tool effectively.

…

One way of improving democratic control would be to give MPs the right to hold nomination hearings and, in extremis, reject the government’s choice for governor and other top positions. Indeed, that’s what parliamentarians want. But the government is resisting. If MPs are to change its mind, they must first show they are up to the job.”

Let’s come back to this when we’ve diagnosed the problem.

Because I still feel I haven’t made my point fully.

What the Libor affair shows us is that regulation must be mechanical, not moral.

This is a lesson we failed to learn from King’s behaviour during the financial crisis, despite his starving the UK banks of liquidity in a misguided attempt at preventing “moral hazard”; his expressed desire to stitch up Lloyds shareholders with a backroom deal to take over Northern Rock; and the actual outrageous stitch-up of Lloyds shareholders with a backroom deal to take over HBoS without adequate due diligence, to which he must at least have given a nod.

My first post on the Libor-fiddling topic touched on the subject of culture:

“The excuse for laying into Diamond seems to be some problem with the ‘culture’ at Barclays. Is it any different to that at any other investment bank? Doesn’t the ‘culture’ in any occupation go with the turf? Presumably they don’t want traders to behave like, say, Premier League footballers, or Hollywood actors. Something less flash perhaps: doctors, say or IT guys. But would they still be able to do the job? These occupations surely require quite different qualities and aptitudes. Maybe something a little more sales oriented, perhaps, then: used car dealers or estate agents. Or politicians! But are these professions more or less honest than investment banking? I’m stuck. Perhaps our politicians could spell out exactly how they want investment bankers to behave.”

The aim of yesterday’s post was to develop the idea that the “scandal” is being treated as a moral issue. There’s something “bad” about Barclays, we’re told, and the Bank of England Governor, with ex officio moral authority, judges it comes from the top and fires the Chief Executive.

But what is “culture”?

This is what an editorial, “Culture shock”, in yesterday’s FT (I’m getting my full £2.50 worth!) suggested:

“Culture is not a fluffy chimera of business how-to books or self-congratulatory corporate reports. Culture, real and unnoticed as the air we breathe, is the web of unspoken mutual understandings that frame what people expect from others and think is expected of them. This web shapes the fortunes of any organisation or social group. Bob Diamond, Barclays’ disgraced ex-chief executive, knew this; he once declared ‘the evidence of culture is how people behave when no one is watching’. He was right…

… [non sequiturs omitted]

A culture cannot be heavy-handedly ‘managed’ by legislation or compliance rules alone. It must be more subtly cultivated and tended.”

OK, we can all agree that behaviour within an organisation is determined by executive example and communications; organisational stories; dress code; building architecture, location and decoration; the presence or absence of game rooms; and so on and so forth – as well as the nature and demands of the work, as I previously stressed. But within all that complexity, all we’re really concerned about here is that rules are followed. There may be indirect ways of achieving this goal by means of some kind of arcane cultural alchemy – would Fairtrade coffee, beanbags and dress-down days work? who knows? – but most people would consider it sensible to simply focus on the outcome.

Obviously the “rules alone” are not enough. There also needs to be an expectation of enforcement. A rooting out of dishonesty. And maybe by spending £100m on investigating Libor-fixing rather than, say, carrying out some “routine email housekeeping” (didn’t something like that come up with News International?), Barclays have shown a willingness to steer their internal culture in the direction of obeying the rules.

With this unsatisfactory view of “culture” in mind, let’s consider the crucial question for the future, the “Mervyn King Question”: Is it possible for the Governor to both exercise moral authority AND for there to be effective oversight of the role?

No, of course not. The Governor can’t both exercise his judgement AND explain the detailed reasons for a decision. If he can explain the precise reasons to whoever he, the Governor is accountable, for example those for firing Bob Diamond (“he broke rule 44b clause 3, which is a sacking offence”), then by definition he isn’t exercising judgement.

The Mervyn King Question suggests then that we have to decide which way we jump. Do we want, in the modern world, to trust the personal judgement of an unelected official, or do we want a team expert in banking regulation to ensure that the rules and sanctions for breaking them are clear to banks and that bank behaviour is monitored and the rules enforced?

Do we want a ruler or do we want rules?

The traditional role of the Governor of the Bank of England was one of arbitrary power. This is where Mervyn King believes we should return. No wonder the job of Governor is so coveted.

But there’s a different path. Surely we’d be better off rejecting the moral approach and focusing on the technical aspects of the role of Governor of the Bank of England?

Let’s take as an example the critical case, where it all started to go wrong, when I first became concerned about the outlook of Mervyn King. Instead of arbitrarily allowing banks (such as Northern Rock) to fail to try to prevent “moral hazard” shouldn’t the Bank have made the rules absolutely clear in advance? NR would not, I’m sure, have relied on interbank funding had it’s executives known that funding may be allowed to dry up and they would have to retire in disgrace.

I would suggest that the Bank start by announcing that it will not allow any Bank to fail due to systemic problems (as opposed to Baring-style sudden catastrophic losses), but will provide liquidity as lender of last resort. What constitutes “systemic” would need clear definition, as would the cost of such support which would include a requirement for banks to raise capital. We have to recognise that we can never allow banks to fail under stress – such failures simply cascade through the economy – and dismiss the nonsense that such a backstop is some kind of subsidy for institutions that are “too big to fail”. This is like saying that Tesco is subsidised because the State provides resources for the prosecution and punishment of shop-lifters.

The Libor-fiddling that mattered – that before the financial crisis – was arguably criminality, pure and simple. It was orchestrated by a small group of traders who knew they were breaking the rules, as their emails make clear: “I would prefer this not be in any book!”, “if you breathe a word of this I’m not telling you anything else” and so on. It became a “scandal” because politicians – principally Ed Miliband – immediately made hay. But business isn’t politics. It’s not primarily about character (neither should politics be, of course, but the UK political process is becoming ever more Presidential and less policy-driven). The danger of allowing the political process to drive banking or other business regulation is that there is no satisfactory answer to the Mervyn King question. Even were we to confer moral authority on the Governor as we do the Prime Minister (who is not only elected, but easier to get rid of than the Governor – men in grey suits and all that), business is not hierarchical like government. It is fundamentally about choice and competition. Differences in outlook are necessary.

Dismissing company bosses in an attempt to change the corporate “culture” would seem to necessarily worsen group-think. If all our banks had been the same perhaps they’d all be part owned by the State now. Perhaps they’d all been like HBoS. As it is, Barclays managed to recapitalise without calling on government funds, Santander expanded and the “elephant” HSBC simply marched on barely affected. Diversity matters.

At worst, of course, there is no difference between condemning a bank’s culture and firing the boss simply because you don’t like the cut of his jib.

I promised I’d return to the points Hugo Dixon made. We may well need some or all of the means Dixon suggests for holding the Governor to account. But before we can do that, Parliament needs to step back and look at how the Governor’s role is defined. They need to review his Terms of Reference. Make sure he’s clear what the rules are.

Battling for Mount LIBOR, the Moral High Ground

If you’re going to watch one film about the Vietnam War then I recommend Hamburger Hill. The point of the film for me at least (other discussions of the movie fail to stress this point) was that the battle was not about the strategic value of the eponymous high ground. Rather, both sides were trying to demonstrate their determination.

Catching up with an episode of Mock the Week last evening, I chanced on a rant by the one I would refer to as the tall, skinny panelist with dark curly hair, had the internet not been invented purely to allow me to remind myself that his name is, in fact, Chris Addison. The comic – who I always feel differs from his generally less hirsute colleagues in looking less like a funny-man, and more like a particularly tedious sociology lecturer – observed at some length that everyone is furious about the Libor “scandal”, even though most of them they don’t have a clue what it’s about. Well observed, in my opinion.

My first post on the Libor topic attempted to convey this moral dimension – and the battle for authority – with its title, Saint Mervyn: King by Name, King by Nature, but perhaps I wandered slightly off the theme, in favour of providing a narrative.

It seems clear after Mervyn King’s appearance before the Treasury Select Committee yesterday, though, that the Governor chose the Libor issue as the ground on which to continue a war with the City, and in particular with Bob Diamond. We’re told that Diamond’s sacking was not just about the Libor issue, but about Barclays’ “culture”, and a “pattern of behaviour”, as discussed in correspondence between Lord Turner, head of the FSA and Marcus Agius, Barclays’ Chairman. It seems clear that nothing new had emerged to implicate Bob Diamond personally and that King therefore simply seized the opportunity to get rid of him. Here’s how the Guardian puts it in an editorial:

“And why exactly was Mr Diamond pushed out? Not for any direct involvement in the Libor scandal but, in the words of Mr King yesterday: ‘They [the bank] have been sailing too close to the wind across a wide number of areas.’ No actual infraction; just a general sense of having gone too far for too long. … The impression left is of rather rough justice.”

Indeed, I’m reminded, the Libor scandal itself is nothing new. Although I now seem to have run out of free views of FT.com pages (so pushed the boat out and bought a copy this morning – £2.50, they’re having a laugh!), I did manage to access an old story that I’d bookmarked:

“Banks served subpoenas in Libor case

By Brooke Masters and Patrick Jenkins in London and Justin Baer in New York

Regulators probing alleged manipulation of a key interbank lending rate have focused their demands for information and interviews on five global banks, according to people familiar with the investigation.

UBS, Bank of America, Citigroup and Barclays have received subpoenas from US regulators probing the setting of the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, for US dollars between 2006 and 2008. …”

Who says bookmarking thousands of interesting news stories is a waste of time, eh?

And this one FT story contained links to pieces in the FT’s Lex and Lombard columns, as well as another story the previous day:

“Big banks investigated over Libor

By Brooke Masters and Patrick Jenkins in London and Justin Baer in New York

Regulators in the US, Japan and UK are investigating whether some of the biggest banks conspired to ‘manipulate’ the benchmark interest rate used to calculate the cost of billions of dollars of debt.

The investigation centres on the panel of 16 banks that help the British Bankers’ Association set the London interbank offered rate, or Libor – the estimated cost of borrowing for banks between each other.

In particular, the investigation was looking at how Libor was set for US dollars during 2006 to 2008, immediately before and during the financial crisis, people familiar with the probes said.

The probe came to light on Tuesday when the Swiss bank UBS disclosed in its annual report that it had received subpoenas from three US agencies and an information demand from the Japanese Financial Supervisory Agency. …”

When were these stories published? 15th and 16th March, 2011.

Now, I may not be willing to fork out for an FT subscription, but I’m sure Bob Diamond and Mervyn King are. In fact, they probably receive the “Pink’un” as a perk of their jobs.

Regular readers will know that I’m very guarded in anything resembling an accusation that I may occasionally make on here, but it does indeed beggar belief that everyone involved is claiming to have been unaware of the brewing Libor scandal – a matter relevant to banks’ annual company reports – until the last few weeks, since even I knew about it, and the Libor-setting process was, until this month, of course, of somewhat peripheral interest to me, and even that overstates my curiosity. My £2.50 copy of the FT quotes Mervyn King on the front page as saying:

“The first I knew of any alleged wrongdoing was when the reports came out two weeks ago.”

Doesn’t the Governor read the FT? If not, why not?

To the extent I worried about it, I assumed the likelihood of fines over Libor-rigging was “in the price” of bank shares (we must be at the point where banks start assuming a few hundred mill in fines each year as part of their business plans, and therefore product-pricing). Active investors must have also thought bank share prices took account of the Libor investigation, as otherwise they would have sold the banks, short if necessary.

As I mentioned yesterday, Libor manipulation – much of which occurred during the financial crisis when the numbers were guesses anyway – would seem to be less serious than HSBC’s desultory attitude towards controls to prevent money-laundering. (Rather predictably, HSBC have seemingly gone overnight from one extreme to the other: I have recently had an HSBC account, to which I log in online 2 or 3 times a month, locked down – “suspended” so I can’t even pay into it – for no apparent reason).

No, Libor has been chosen as a battleground.

Sacking Bob Diamond makes no sense otherwise. Barclays report that they spent £100m “to ensure no stone has been left unturned” in their internal investigation and have settled early with the regulators. Since this has not been enough to keep the top guys in their jobs, perhaps their successors will adopt a different strategy next time!

And, like a misjudged military intervention, the battle threatens to turn into a war, consuming its instigators.

Mervyn King has clearly over-stepped his authority and threatened his legacy: “It is the BoE that finds itself most directly in the line of fire”, writes the FT’s Chris Giles. Not only are more and more awkward questions being asked in the UK, the regulators across the Pond are now playing holier than thou. That FT front-page lead (taking precedence over a report of the HSBC compliance chief quitting during a US Senate hearing!) is titled: “Bernanke calls Libor a ‘flawed’ benchmark”, and observes that “Mr Bernanke’s description of how the US reacted [earlier, in 2007] to claims that banks were understating the rates at which they could borrow contrasted with testimony yesterday from Sir Mervyn King.”

Mervyn King’s “pattern of behaviour” suggests to me that he may have been bullied at school. If not, I rather suspect he’s now going to find out what it’s like at his regular central-banker get-togethers.

Bashing Barclays Badly

I noted yesterday that I’d set the recorder to catch Jerry del Messier’s appearance before the Treasury Select Committee. Sadly, when I got home I found I had filled my hard disc with several hours of BBC News 24, which contained no more than 7 minutes of coverage, including “analysis” of the session. Clearly the BBC is not so bothered to get to the heart of the matter.

Never mind, I watched a bit on Parliament TV this morning, after warming up with some live coverage (thanks BBC) of Mervyn King’s appearance, flanked by his deputies and Adair Turner, like a bunch of schoolboys caught reading top-shelf magazines behind the bike-sheds.

Unlike the BBC, the MPs are trying gamely, but you really have to wonder if the process works properly. Maybe just two or three of them should ask all the questions, to avoid lines of questioning being dropped just as it gets interesting, as keeps happening when it’s another Member’s turn for a few minutes in the limelight.

Still, I wasn’t disappointed by del Messier’s grilling (you missed broadcasting some great live TV, BBC), but a couple of points seemed to pass the MPs by.

First, it finally became clear that Bob Diamond’s infamous memo was sent the day after the phone call it records, as suggested by the timestamp. Here’s the full memo:

“From: Diamond, Bob: Barclays Capital

Sent: 10/30/2008 14:19:54

To: Varley, John: Barclays PLC

Cc: del Missier, Jerry: Barclays Capital (NYK)

Subject: File note: Bank of England call

Fyi

File Note: Call to RED [Diamond] from Paul Tucker, Bank of England

Date: 29th October 2008

Further to our last call, Mr Tucker reiterated that he had received calls from a number of senior figures within Whitehall to question why Barclays was always toward the top end of the Libor pricing. His response was ‘you have to pay what you have to pay’. I asked if he could relay the reality, that not all banks were providing quotes at the levels that represented real transactions, his response ‘oh, that would be worse’.

I explained again our market rate driven policy and that it had recently meant that we appeared in the top quartile and on occasion the top decile of the pricing. Equally I noted that we continued to see others in the market posting rates at levels that were not representative of where they would actually undertake business. This latter point has on occasion pushed us higher than would otherwise appear to be the case. In fact, we are not having to ‘pay up’ for money at all.

Mr Tucker stated the levels of calls he was receiving from Whitehall were ‘senior’ and that while he was certain we did not need advice, that it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently.

RED [Diamond]”

I was surprised, to say the least, that none of the Select Committee noticed this delay the first time round when they might have asked Diamond what he did in the intervening time (he phoned del Messier, it turns out, though I recollect Diamond didn’t recollect this). Diamond, I remember, testified at some length that he was concerned that Barclays might appear weak whilst trying to finalise its life-saving Middle East share sale. Surely he would not have waited a day before relaying the message from Tucker.

Second, the MPs are completely failing to distinguish between different periods of Libor fiddling. From 2005-7 traders in Barclays and elsewhere were persuading the rate-setters to submit a Barclays Libor rate in order to try to make money. This is appalling – see the FSA’s report (pdf) for the salacious details. But after 2007 Libor wasn’t working. Interbank lending wasn’t happening. The FSA write:

“In the latter half of 2007 and throughout 2008, lending in London for maturities longer than overnight came to a virtual standstill and there was extreme dislocation in global money markets.”

So the banks were just making a judgement as to what they might be able to borrow at. Since it was just a guess, it stands to reason that if they were guessing higher than every other bank they may as well guess lower. “Low-balling” Libor was done for an entirely different reason from mid 2007 on – top-down from management, rather than bottom-up by traders – so as not to appear weak.

What strikes me is that by releasing Diamond’s file note, Barclays have successfully steered the MPs away from the criminality and into the increasingly murky area of Libor-setting during the financial crisis. Damage-limitation PR, basically, though that’s fairly moot from Diamond’s point of view right now, but the MPs really should have tried to distinguish between the two periods. The symptoms may be similar – dodgy Libor submissions – but the causes are different. Both hayfever and a cold might cause you to sneeze, but you’d treat the two conditions quite differently.

The Committee session with Mervyn King this morning was quite different. The Governor didn’t seem to realise he was in the dock. He was shirty with his inquisitors, and even tried to talk over one. And Andrew Tyrie seemed genuinely cross. He shared the concerns I expressed yesterday. Trouble is, dealing with King is like having a 6 foot shark on a line intended for mackerel. He seems to be pulling in several different directions at once. One minute he’s the regulator (on the grounds that the function is being handed back to the BoE), the next he’s not. One minute Diamond is being fired because of the outcry over Libor, the next it’s to do with a letter from the FSA (the Guardian has posted it here).

I hope and expect Tyrie’s report to be critical of the Governor, and the governance of the Bank of England.

Here are a couple of questions to think about:
- why doesn’t the Bank of England have separate Chairman (and Board) and Chief Executive roles? The Governor would then be – as the Chief Exec – at least accountable to someone.
- if this is what happens when they don’t like the “culture” (or just the CEO) at a bank/a few corners are cut on a poorly defined technical procedures during a once in a lifetime crisis (which all the other banks might have been doing as well)/a few traders find a new way to cheat a poorly-defined system (which might have been happening at all the banks) – delete as applicable, depending why you think Diamond was sacked – then what are they going to do when a bank does something really bad? Like, for example, allowing widespread money-laundering, as HSBC seems to have done.

Saint Mervyn: King by Name, King by Nature

I’ve been following the Libor scandal with considerable interest. The former Chief Operating Officer of Barclays Jerry del Messier should be settling into his chair before the UK House of Commons Treasury Select Committee as I write these words – don’t worry, I’ve set the recorder for the BBC News Channel.

Perhaps we’ll find out the answer to why Jerry del Messier was cleared of rigging Libor on the grounds that, according to Barclays’ briefing note (pdf) issued ahead of Bob Diamond’s appearance before the Select Committee he:

“…concluded that an instruction had been passed down from the Bank of England not to keep LIBORs so high. He passed down an instruction to that effect to the submitters.”

on the basis of Diamond’s infamous note to file which suggested that Paul Tucker, Deputy Governer of the Bank of England had advised that:

“…while he was certain we did not need advice, that it did not always need to be the case that we appeared as high as we have recently.”

The mysteriousness of it all arises because Barclays was already lowering its Libor submissions. They admit that during the period Sept 2007 – April 2008:

“Less senior managers gave instructions to Barclays submitters to lower their LIBOR submissions. The origin of these instructions is not clear.”

You’d think that when Jerry del Messier told his rate-setters to “lowball”, someone might have mentioned that they were already doing it!

I really like the point in Barclays memo that:

“[del Messier's] instruction became redundant after a few days as liquidity flowed back into the market.”

“Became” redundant? His instruction was already redundant!

It’s not del Messier’s behaviour that really bothers me about the whole affair. It seems all the banks were at it, and Barclays may not have been the worst culprit. Barclays is just the first to settle. And the only logical explanation I can think of for George Osborne’s strange claim that Libor lowballing was sanctioned by Balls, Brown and Vadera is that it was an open secret in the City.

After all, no-one would borrow at a rate inflated by concerns that the banks might fail, as opposed to one simply reflecting risk, the base rate and the balance between supply and demand for money. Libor simply doesn’t work in those circumstances. The authorities would be obliged to address the problem any way they could in order to save the economy.

I hate to see public bullying. It seems our politicians – and many in the media and, notably, Mervyn King – just don’t like Bob Diamond. What will they do when they run out of obvious scapegoats? The excuse for laying into Diamond seems to be some problem with the “culture” at Barclays. Is it any different to that at any other investment bank? Doesn’t the “culture” in any occupation go with the turf? Presumably they don’t want traders to behave like, say, Premier League footballers, or Hollywood actors. Something less flash perhaps: doctors, say or IT guys. But would they still be able to do the job? These occupations surely require quite different qualities and aptitudes. Maybe something a little more sales oriented, perhaps, then: used car dealers or estate agents. Or politicians! But are these professions more or less honest than investment banking? I’m stuck. Perhaps our politicians could spell out exactly how they want investment bankers to behave.

Or perhaps Mervyn King could tell us. After all, he’s the one who fired Bob Diamond – never mind that the regulatory investigation is far from complete. Is he going to fire the heads of a dozen other banks?

Never mind that the real reason seems to be some problem with Barclays “culture”, it’s not actually Mervyn King’s job to sack the Chief Executives of banks. Or anyone else employed by a bank for that reason. And even if it was King’s job, he would be obliged to follow due process.

Diamond could be forced to step down if the Financial Services Authority found he was not a “fit and proper” person. Which didn’t happen.

Or if he lost the confidence of Barclays’ shareholders. He might have done, I suppose, but that’s not why he went.

No, Marcus Agius (Barclays Chairman and ex-Chairman) explained what happened:

“Agius told MPs that the chief executive had quit ‘because it became clear that he lost the support of his regulators’ just 48 hours before the American-born Diamond was scheduled to appear before the committee.

Agius described how he had been summoned, along with Sir Michael Rake, the most senior non-executive director on the Barclays board, to see King shortly after Agius’s resignation had been announced a week ago on Monday.

‘We had a conversation in which he said that Bob Diamond no longer enjoyed the support of his regulators,’ said Agius, who then had to hold an emergency board meeting by telephone of non-executive directors to decide how to proceed. He admitted to being shocked as concerns had not been raised when the £290m fine for attempting to manipulate Libor rigging emerged five days earlier.

Agius said he and Rake went to Diamond’s home on the Monday evening. Diamond – who had insisted to MPs last week that he did not know about any regulatory pressures – ‘was not in a good place’, said Agius. He said that the conversation was ‘not long’ and that Diamond had asked for time to talk to his family.

‘I left his [Diamond's] house confident he would resign, if he hadn’t done so already,’ Agius said.”

Staggering.

I’m surprised there’s not been more outcry at such authoritarian behaviour by the Governor of the Bank of England, who is, after all, just a public official.

One exception is Philip Inman who provides some background in a Guardian piece titled “How Mervyn King Finally Got Bob Diamond.”

“…from the moment the credit crunch began to wreck Northern Rock’s finances in the summer of 2007, the grammar-school boy from Wolverhampton, whose father was a railway worker and then a geography teacher, was ready with his analysis. King said most of the huge debts accumulated by banks could be tied to the huge bonuses executives received as reward for their lending.

In meetings with regulators and then chancellor Alistair Darling, Diamond, then head of Barclays Capital, and his investment banking peers were seen as a bunch of amoral, greedy traders. Darling relates in his diaries how King would counsel against providing rescue funds that perpetuated a risk-taking culture.

But it was Diamond, one of nine children and also the son of a teacher, who made it public and personal. At a time when most bankers were busy trying to prevent their institutions going bust, he broke cover to give an interview in a Sunday newspaper. In an analysis of central banks’ actions in combating the credit squeeze, Diamond notably excluded the Bank of England from praise.

He said providing short-term cash was the job of a central bank. ‘For the recovery to continue we need to find more ways to get liquidity into the short end of the curve,’ he said. ‘That’s down to confidence, and that’s down to the central banks. We’ve seen thoughtful moves by the [US Federal Reserve] and the [European Central Bank].’

The Bank of England saw the interview as a direct attack on its handling of the crisis. King’s response was to embark on a series of speeches and interviews in which he openly decried the emergence of a ‘small elite’ that agreed to pay itself bonuses in good times and bad.”

So petty. Maybe Mervyn is touchy – I think Diamond was right. Perhaps, if King had behaved more like other central bankers, we’d have a healthier banking industry today, and Ed Miliband wouldn’t be threatening to break up the survivors to create more competition. Don’t forget that Alliance & Leicester, Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock have all disappeared from our high streets.

What’s more, blaming the financial crisis on bank bonuses is simplistic to say the least.

And perhaps central bankers should have seen the housing bubble warning signs a bit earlier.

Another commentator who hasn’t let the matter pass is Hugo Dixon who suggests at Reuter’s that the “BoE governor’s arm-twisting raises tricky issues”:

“…on whose behalf exactly was King speaking? The BoE, after all, is not responsible for supervising banks – and won’t be until next year. That’s still the job of the Financial Services Authority. If King wasn’t speaking for the FSA too, he was arguably stepping beyond his authority.

On the other hand, if the BoE governor was speaking on the FSA’s behalf, why didn’t the regulator itself deliver the message that Diamond should go? And why too did the FSA apparently change its position? After all, the regulator had only just agreed a settlement with Barclays over the Libor rate-fixing scandal. If it had wanted Diamond to go, that would have been the moment to say so.

A further question is how exactly the regulators managed to twist Barclays’ arm. If the FSA doesn’t support a bank director in his role, the current mechanism for removing the executive is to deem him no longer ‘fit and proper’. But it seems hard to argue that Diamond didn’t meet that test. After all, the lengthy investigation into the Libor scandal did not criticise him personally.

Some people will no doubt say it is good that Diamond has gone and it doesn’t really matter how that was engineered. But methods used in difficult situations can easily become precedents.

The BoE is about to become even more powerful next year when it takes over banking supervision. It is important that it operates in a transparent and accountable fashion.”

Quite.

The Pensioners’ Crusade

I noted on Tuesday Nick Boles’ suggestion in a keynote speech at the Resolution Foundation (pdf) to limit certain pensioner benefits to the less well-off:

“Spending on universal benefits for the elderly (the Winter Fuel Allowance, free prescriptions, free bus travel and free TV licenses for the over 75s) reached roughly £4 billion in 2010/11.

I know that this help is vitally important for many older people – and a step away from universal provision of these benefits after the next election would need to be handled very carefully as many members of this generation are admirably reluctant to make a fuss, even when they really need help.

But, does anyone here think it would be responsible for a country in our financial position to go on giving a free TV license to Michael Winner, free prescriptions to Lord Sugar and a winter fuel allowance to Sir Paul McCartney after 2015?”

A point well made.  But, I strongly suspect, to no avail.

I diligently provided links to reaction at the BBC, Guardian, Independent and Mail which all headlined Boles’ hardly original elderly means-testing proposal, even though it would only save £1.5bn of the £8.5bn he says we need to save:

“If we are to achieve stability in our public finances AND make crucial investments in improving productivity and competitiveness, we must find a way to save at least £8.5 billion from the £145 billion we currently spend on benefits other than pensions.”

Popping into Tesco yesterday, though, I noticed that I’d jumped the gun in my headline search.  The Express is going to war on the issue.  Holy war.  Here’s their front page:

I love that capital C in Crusade.  “Upper-case there”, the editor must have ordered.  “We’re not being figurative here.  This is official.  It’ll be there in the history books alongside Richard the Lionheart vs Saladin and, of course, the Children.”

The headline’s a classic as well.  Whereas the Mail and the Independent implicitly accepted the government’s right to cut benefits, but signalled with the A-word (“axe”) that targeting elderly benefits might be a cut too far, the Express went several steps further.  “Secret Plot to Rob Pensioners”.  Hmm.  Not really “secret” is it?  Which means it doesn’t really qualify as a “plot”.  And I think most would agree that discontinuing the provision of a benefit hardly counts as “robbery” (which, strictly speaking, involves violence or the threat of violence, as opposed to theft, which doesn’t).  One might even quibble that it is “pensioners” being “robbed”.  The word “pensioners” has connotations of those struggling to get by on a meagre stipend, and the qualification for the benefits in question is on the basis of age, not – as Boles’ examples of Winner, Sugar and McCartney might suggest – dependency on an annuity.

Boles’ whole point was that benefits would only be withheld from the wealthier elderly, a subtlety somewhat glossed over in the scene-setting opening sentences of the story on the front page of yesterday’s Express:

“A THREAT to strip Britain’s pensioners of benefits such as free bus passes and prescriptions triggered outrage last night.

A key ally of David Cameron yesterday called for strict means testing of claims that also include winter fuel payments and TV licences.

But the move was immediately condemned by charities and OAP groups – and today the Daily Express adds its voice by launching a Fair Deal For Our Pensioners Crusade.

This newspaper urges readers and campaigners alike to support its demand that the Government honours its pledges to pensioners in full, and does nothing to chip away at their universal welfare entitlements. Tory MP Nick Boles caused ­fury after saying the Government could save £4billion a year by stopping better-off pensioners from getting the benefits.”

£4bn/yr is in fact the total cost of the benefits.  Boles hopes to save £1.5bn/yr.

But Cameron’s calculation will be whether £1.5bn is worth the potential electoral damage in 2015 (if the Coalition lasts that long).  He’ll be looking for media outrage at “giving a free TV license to Michael Winner, free prescriptions to Lord Sugar and a winter fuel allowance to Sir Paul McCartney”.  And not finding it.

On one side is most favourable headline to the proposal at the BBC, which reports that the “Rich elderly should lose benefits, says David Cameron ally”.

And on the other is a lot of axeing and the Express’s army of pensioners ready to march against the heathens in Downing Street.

You have to admire the Express.  They understand their constituency.  As, I’m sure, does Cameron.  This kite’s not going to fly.

Nick Boles’ Resolutions

Note (12:15 11/7/12): Corrected in 2nd paragraph following a communication from the Resolution Foundation – they are focussed on issues rather than party politics (like the E3 Foundation – I approve) and do not “describe themselves” as “centre-left in outlook”, as I said in the initial version of this post that they “might” do.

I wrote last time that I would try to report on events I attend. For once, I’m keeping my word.

This morning, the Resolution Foundation (RF) hosted the latest in a series of meetings making up its “Commission on Living Standards”, which constitutes a large part of the analysis and policy debate around what Ed Miliband loves to call the “squeezed middle”, that is, as RF put it, “the economic decline of low to middle income Britain”. Heck, the Commission even has its own website, full of bells and whistles. Whilst the RF seems centre-left in outlook, they are politically independent and engaged with all three mainstream political parties. Today was the turn of the Tory and Cameron loyalist Nick Boles, with Lord Adonis chipping in as responder.

Many Resolution Foundation events are heavily trailed and reported in the media, and Nick Boles’ pitch on Raising Living Standards this morning was no exception. Trouble is, the mainstream media inevitably focus on whatever aspect they believe will catch the attention of their readers, so we have “Tories plan to axe pensioners’ benefits” in the Independent, “Limit winter fuel allowance and Sure Start, says Cameron ally” in the Guardian, the more accurate headline “Rich elderly should lose benefits, says David Cameron ally” at the BBC, not to mention the A-word again at the Mail: “Axe free prescriptions and bus passes for the better-off elderly, says Cameron ally”.

Clearly the media would rather scare the horses (check out the comments – and the voting on them – on that BBC story) than present some reasoned argument. No wonder we end up with swathes of incoherent policies.

The Independent’s report gives the best summary of the politics of the situation. Cameron doesn’t want to “axe” benefits for the well-off elderly, because he promised not to in 2010. Will he be able to avoid repeating such a promise in 2015? The question was asked this morning. Although Boles made a good point about how none of the parties faced up to the impending fiscal crisis in 2010, I’m not convinced. I reckon Paul McCartney’s bus-pass is safe for some time yet.

But Boles’ talk was not titled “Pensioner’s perks”. It was much more wide-ranging than that. Indeed, there was much more discussion in the Q&A this morning of tax credits, youth unemployment and even the comparative advantages of the German education system (better for technical students) and that in the UK (better for the academically inclined).

If there was a takeaway policy message from Boles, it was not that the government might try to claw back around £1.5bn/yr from well-off pensioners, it was that they want to find £8.5bn of savings (at 2012 prices) from the welfare budget as a whole by 2016 (by which time that £8.5bn will have inflated to £10.5bn). And my impression was that if it was up to Boles most of the saving would come from child-related benefits, especially those paid to parents (i.e. Child Tax Credits and Child Benefit), as opposed to schools, and Sure Start, which Boles seems to have it in for.

Since the hard-working families demographic is up there in electoral importance with the pensioners-who’ve-earned-the-right, it’s hard to see where any of the £8.5bn is coming from.

The strength – and weakness – of Boles’ approach is that he aims to be ruthlessly analytical. So he laid down 4 principles:
(1) Only those areas of spending that measurably increase the competitiveness of the economy should be allowed to increase faster than GDP.
(2) As implied by (1), spending on other areas (police, defence, environment etc) must fall relative to GDP.
(3) Areas of recent public-spending growth must decline relative to GDP.
(4) There should be no new areas of spending.

This leads to some overly-rigid thinking, in my opinion. For example, principle (4) seems to preclude a resolution of the elderly care issue, which has revived this week (apparently all-party talks broke down some time ago – like Adonis, I despair at the Westminster political process). And principle (1) relies on measurements, which are not simple in practice – this seems to be why Boles doesn’t like Sure Start.

During the Q&A though, it became clear that Boles has another principle:
(5) Public spending must decline as a proportion of GDP.
Boles said he didn’t go as far as David Laws, who has apparently called for a reduction in public spending as a proportion of GDP to 35%, from 45% after the financial crisis, but implied 40% was a ceiling (Osborne is trying to get it back down to around 39%, similar to the level under New Labour).

Of course, as Adonis pointed out, growth is key, and could reduce the tax-take percentage simply by increasing the denominator (GDP).

But the real weakness in Boles’ thinking is that it ascribes a cost to money that is simply paid to the Exchequer and then paid back out again. This is illogical. A perk is still a perk whether it is a free bus pass (counts towards the public spending percentage) or preferable tax treatment (doesn’t count). You could save money by taking away free bus passes for well-off over 65s or by requiring over 65s to pay National Insurance (NI). Now you or I would weigh up the pros and cons of both these measures. But Nick Boles doesn’t look at it that way. He’s wrong – the public only care about the rate of tax they pay (and to be honest even that’s irrational – they should only care when it changes, as pay rates adjust to the tax regime over time). People certainly don’t give a monkey’s whether UK public-spending is 29% or 45% of GDP – or 25% or 50% for that matter.

So Boles would be wise to reflect on the last question asked this morning, by Gavin Kelly, the RF CEO and Chair of the meeting. Gavin reckoned that the £8.5bn could be saved by requiring over 65s to pay NI (which all agree should be consolidated with income tax – it would be a bit illogical to pay insurance for when you can’t work when you’re over retirement age!) and (probably the biggie) reduce tax relief on pension contributions to basic rate tax only.

I suspect there are other tax allowances that really apply only to the better off that could be looked at – some of those for buy-to-let landlords look rather generous to me, and do we really need to allow new savings to be added to ISA tax shelters every year? Are we really serious about reducing the deficit?

It would seem to be less painful to reduce tax allowances than cut public spending. Consideration should at least be given to tax measures that don’t commit the political cardinal sin of raising headline rates of tax. Come on guys, even Brown was bold enough to raise the NI rate!

Let’s hope ideology doesn’t trump pragmatism in the Coalition’s forthcoming Spending Review. Perhaps they should start by renaming it a Budget (or even Deficit Reduction) Review. Or simply reclassify tax allowances as “spending”!

Grexit? Spout? No, better half-in, half-out!

I’m not a huge admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and still less of her Chancellor, Nigel Lawson. But, back in the day, they suggested the eminently sensible idea of “currency competition” as an alternative to European Monetary Union (or, rather aptly, EMU). The idea was that the euro would be introduced alongside the pound, franc, mark and so on, with markets deciding the extent to which the international currency displaced the national currencies. But did the eurocrats listen? No, like improbably large flightless birds, they simply buried their heads in the sand.

The time for currency competition has now arrived. The case is compelling. So compelling in fact that when I scour the web to check my (in fact accurate) recall of the origin of the idea of currency competition in the eurozone, I find that it’s already been suggested as a solution to the current crisis – an alternative to Greek exit from the euro (Grexit) and Spain out (Spout) – by Philip Booth at Conservative Home. The existence of Professor Booth’s contribution allows me to make this post a little shorter than it would otherwise be. He also points out something I hadn’t previously realised – that it would be necessary to enact “a simple constitutional change to remove the clause in the EU constitution that requires the euro to be the sole legal tender currency in eurozone countries.” Actually that seems to put a small spanner in the works – is there no limit to the stupidity and lack of foresight of the eurocracy?

What would happen is this. In the (extremely likely) event that the Greeks do not vote on June 17th for parties willing to stick to the country’s agreements with its creditors, the EU (and IMF) would say to Greece that no more euros are to be made available from, say, 1/1/13 (to allow for necessary preparations). Greece nevertheless wants to stay in the euro. The conditions would be these:

• All euros in circulation in Greece remain as euros. New bank accounts in drachma are created alongside for those who need them. Euro debts remain euro debts. And the Greek governments euro debts remain payable (it’s too late, unfortunately, for those that have already been forgiven).

• Drachma are issued by the Greek central bank, subsequently backed by drachma bonds made available to the domestic market (I say domestic as international lenders are likely to be somewhat sceptical). The drachma floats freely against the euro.

• Greece starts paying public sector workers, domestic contractors and state beneficiaries (the unemployed, pensioners etc) in drachma. The private sector has a choice. But companies (say in tourism) with euro debts and euro income would have no need to change their main operating currency. Such Greek exporters are not part of the problem – they can and should remain part of the European single market. It’s the Greek government that is bankrupt. The problem is the Greek public sector, not the private sector.

• All Greek shops (and domestic businesses) would be obliged to accept both euro and drachma at an official market rate, say the previous day’s closing mid-market price.

• Greece continues to service its international euro debt and recapitalises its banks (in euros, though if drachma are provided, these would have to be immediately converted by the banks). The need for euros for this purpose would be a key factor in determining the value of the drachma and hence public sector wage and other costs. In return (and only if satisfied that the Greek banks are solvent) the ECB would continue to allow Greek banks to borrow from it.

• In theory it doesn’t really matter what currency Greece collects taxes in (as they are convertible), but because of time-lags the tax currency should match the currency of the taxable event (i.e. if you’re paid in euro you pay taxes in euro). Note that the drachma is likely to inflate, so the public and companies are likely to want to convert to euro for savings purposes.

• Greek import costs are similarly convertible, but since there may be few external holders of drachma, euro would effectively be required. Greece would be forced to balance its trade (and in fact achieve a surplus, given its debts) – and the drachma would fall until it did.

The goals of such a policy are of course to:

• Stop the haemorrhaging of deposits from Greek, Spanish and Italian banks. This is taking place because of fear that such deposits will be forcibly converted to a weaker currency, such as the drachma.

• Remove the need for further Greek and other bailouts.

• Force Greece (and others) to take reponsibility for their own budget and trade deficits.

• Allow wages and hence public-spending to adjust in Greece and any other countries that follow the same course.

My flavour of the idea is slightly different from Booth’s in that he doesn’t make such a clear distinction between the public and private sectors of Greece’s economy. What we have in common is the realisation that, as Booth puts it:

“There would be no doubt about the legal status of private debts and credits denominated in euro and little doubt about the legal status of Greek government debt (any doubts would revolve around whether it was denominated in euros or the ‘sovereign currency of the Greek government’ – most likely the former). There would be no capital flight – all euro deposits in Greek banks would remain euro deposits.”

I would say the policy exploits what George Soros terms “reflexivity”. That is, it creates the positive feedback that as soon as it becomes seriously discussed it becomes less worthwhile for Greeks (and Spaniards and Italians) to move their euro bank deposits to Germany, making the policy itself easier to implement.

Note that this desirable reflexivity is in marked contrast to the historically stupid decision to haircut private lenders to Greece, which had the fairly predictable consequence of raising the costs of borrowing by other euro countries perceived by the market to be weak.

I call this the “half-in, half-out” or “Hiho” plan for restoring some kind of normality to the economies of the eurozone’s ailing members and to get the overall European economy moving again. As the ditty goes: “Hiho, hiho, it’s off to work we go!”

Gifts to Greece

My first thought this morning was to write about the so-called UK drought again. Maybe I’ll post something on that later.

Then I had a strong urge to comment on the absurdly excessive punishment of Lewis Hamilton (a 5 place penalty or inadmission of his final run – moreorless equivalent punishments – would have been appropriate) after an error by his team in qualifying for today’s Spanish GP. I’d hardly call myself an expert on the sport, but a previous foray into F1 commentary attracted a good deal of attention.

Instead I’m going to channel my annoyance at the spoiling of what might have vaguely resembled a sporting event in Barcelona towards the Greeks.

All I want to convey is one simple point, that the Greek people have benefited hugely from the international loans on which they have already partially defaulted and look increasingly like failing to repay in their entirety.

We haven’t invented this thing we call money just for fun. Money allows resources to be allocated. If you borrow it, spend it and fail to repay the loan, you have acquired or consumed resources that could have been used by someone else. Take the Athens metro railway and all the other billions worth of infrastructure to support the 2004 Olympic Games. How was that funded? I’ll hazard a guess. Borrowed money, at least in part. And what will happen to all that capital investment when Greece defaults? It’ll still be there. These assets will remain in existence indefinitely for the benefit of the Greek people. To the extent they haven’t been paid for, they’ve effectively been stolen from the rest of the world.

Some loans may be riskier than others, because that’s how the world is, but, unlike equity investments, loans are designed to be repaid. Financial disruption – on a global scale over the last 5 years – arises when debts are not repaid. So, because of the knock-on effects, Greece’s default is worse than theft! The entire EU has been plunged into recession in large part because of the need for the financial system to prepare for possible Greek default. Instead of using capital to support new lending, banks have been writing down Greek (and other) debt and taking actual losses.

Obviously we’re just reaping what was sown when Greece and other European sovereigns borrowed unsustainably. The question is how to prevent repeats of this cycle of behaviour?

Let’s mull over that question for a minute. What is the popular conception of what’s going on?

I think it was Arthur Smith I heard on the radio yesterday saying the Greeks should be let off their debts because “it’s not the fault” of those protesting. In what sense is that, Arthur? Are you perhaps saying the average Greek took no executive decisions regarding the nation’s finances? Clearly true. But isn’t a large part of the problem that they haven’t paid and continue not to pay their taxes? What do you think is fairer, that every Greek homeowner should pay a special tax (they’re refusing) or that you and I should find the money?

And isn’t a large part of the problem the Greek public-sector? What do you think is fairer, that Greek workers should take whatever pay cuts it takes to balance the books (as has happened elsewhere in Europe, such as in Estonia – now growing again – Latvia and Lithuania) or that you and I should find the money?

Many non-wealthy Greeks must also be culpable of wilfully participating in a cash economy, benefiting from lower prices for services whilst complicit in tax avoidance. What do you think is fairer, that the Greeks start paying taxes commensurate with their public spending like people in most other countries, or that you and I should find the money?

But the really interesting point is that Greece is a democracy. They’ve chosen their own government since the ousting of the colonels in the 1970s. Collectively, then, they’ve repeatedly elected politicians, at least some of which have overspent, undertaxed and cooked the books, or appointed officials to do so on their behalf. Clearly, collectively, the Greeks have benefited from this behaviour. I’m intrigued, Arthur, whether you’re suggesting that, collectively, the Greek people are also not responsible for the situation they find themselves in.

That’s probably enough. After all, Arthur is a national treasure, practically the new Queen Mother, and perhaps a little fragile. Maybe he just didn’t think. Maybe, like the QM, he inhabits a world where decisions are made by waving a magic wand. Maybe, like the QM, he lives in a world where one need take no responsibility for one’s finances.

I also caught a snippet this morning of someone on the Andrew Marr Show invoking the precedent of Argentina. That great and honourable country, that upstanding, exemplary member of the international community most recently defaulted on their debts about a decade ago. And it’s been great for their economy! Who’d have thought it? It’d be great for my personal finances if I went out and bought a house, a car, new furnishings and white goods, new shoes, clothes and so on and then didn’t bother paying for them. I’m sure I’d feel pretty well off for a few years too.

Let’s pick on someone else. Arianna Huffington writes in the NYT:

“Yes, the Greeks acted irresponsibly before the economic collapse — the same way my father had acted irresponsibly in his private and professional life. But that is not reason to punish the children, to destroy their future as part of a remedy for a past for which they bear no responsibility.”

What Arianna is saying – for some reason “bleeding heart liberal” is the outmoded phrase that comes to mind – is a little more sophisticated than Arthur Smith’s indignant genialism. We have to draw a line, she says, to protect the innocent. Though, I can’t help pointing out yet again, these “innocent” are nevertheless beneficiaries of the misappropriated funds spent in Greece over the last decade or so. Perhaps they’ll remember that every time they hop on Athens’ shiny new metro trains.

The fear gripping financial markets – and contributing to the unnecessary economic hardship and suffering of innocent little children currently taking place in, say, the UK – is that other countries will follow Arianna’s line of reasoning too. Why shouldn’t Ireland, Spain, Portugal and even Italy say “don’t punish the children”? Having elected profligate, irresponsible governments that have given them what they wanted – low taxes, high spending – why won’t they now elect governments to satisfy their new desire for debt writeoff with some kind of moral justification (right wing nationalist or left wing anti-capitalist – take your pick, or, hey, what the hell, you can even pick both!).

If we want financial stability – quite possibly a good thing, I suggest, in light of the 1930s, just as a for example – then debts have to be repaid. And sovereign debts would be a good start.

So how can the international community protect itself against freeloaders? Against those countries who run up debts, fail to collect enough tax and then, in the words of the song about the girl next door and the bathroom floor, plead “It Wasn’t Me”?

Here’s my suggestion. Many of the countries that default are serial offenders. There’s something deeply ingrained, in their DNA if you like, that leads them to spend too much and collect too little tax. So cut them off from international finance for long enough for them to lose thir habits. This would be simple to implement. The financial services industry is highly regulated (all that effort’s been really effective, hasn’t it?). Regulators in responsible countries (say the UK, the US, the EU apart from Greece) could simply demand that no financial institution or its subsidiaries (maybe even no company) lends at all to a government that has defaulted on sovereign debt over the last 50 years – or maybe even more. Or, crucially, to any institution in that country dependent on its government, such as a bank or a company.

Since holding the currency of the defaulted country would constitute lending, all investment in defaulted countries would have to be funded locally in their own currency. Imports would require foreign currency that would have to be acquired beforehand by local institutions or individuals, i.e. by selling goods and services as exports (or small amounts of currency to tourists and other visitors). No publicly funded export credit guarantees would be available to UK companies, for example. In effect, such countries would be forbidden from running a trade deficit.

Such a measure would do two things. It would financially quarantine serial defaulters for a time longer than short-term market memory currently manages (defaulters tend to return to the international markets within a decade). And it would give non-defaulters pause for thought.

Don’t Backslide on Greece!

You know there’s serious trouble when the Economist runs a two-page editorial, in this case proposing “how to save the euro”.

The Economist agrees with most observers that the problem boils down to how to deal with Greece.

Let’s recap.  Greece, a serial defaulter, essentially fiddled the books to understate its debt in order to be admitted to the euro club, hoping for more economic stability.  Then the financial crisis came, and, as the saying goes, the tide went out and the Greeks were seen to be wearing no trunks.  Not only that, there was an Aegean tsunami on the horizon. Luckily, the Germans had grabbed the deck-chairs so the Greeks aren’t on their own.

What are the Greeks, the Germans and the eurocrats (not to mention the IMF) to do?

What baffles me is the current hysteria from all quarters. Decisive action is not required, as for example, George Osborne insists. The Greek debt is a long-term problem which requires a long-term solution. “Decisive action” implies some kind of quick fix. “Decisive action” is the last thing we need.

In fact, I can see things that can be done to mitigate the situation – economic stimulus measures in the less-indebted eurozone, other European (that includes the UK, Mr Osborne) and other global economies – but I simply can’t see how the central problem could be handled any better than it already is. If that’s not what the markets want to hear then the markets will just have to get over themselves. Some problems just have to be lived with.

Let’s consider the alternatives (I’ve previously written about this on Martin Wolf’s blog at the FT, but I can’t even access that right now, as I terminated my FT subscription in protest at them trying to jack up the price).

1. Greece exits the euro and devalues
This would be catastrophic, at least in the short-term. The Economist discusses the possibility and quotes an estimate that such a step would cost Greece 40-50% of its GDP in the first year (though this seems to assume they leave the EU as well). The trouble is, the “mother of all financial crises” that would result would not be confined to Greece. French and other eurozone banks would take a massive hit, with all kinds of knock-on effects. Even if the initial shock could be contained without seriously recessionary consequences for the remaining eurozone countries, it would simply be a case of “who’s next?” – Ireland, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Belgium, France…

2. Greece devalues within the euro
This is the straw that many are now clinging to, including the Economist, but in fact it’s almost as bad as option 1.

First, there’s the moral argument. Why should the beneficiaries of excessive Greek borrowing be forgiven their debts? Greek taxpayers (or non-payers, by all accounts) would escape paying taxes equivalent to the nation’s long-term spending; all Greeks would have benefited from public services that they haven’t fully paid for; Greek public sector workers would have been paid more than the nation could actually afford – the list is endless. The point is, although different Greek constituencies would no doubt blame each other, the entire nation is complicit, though pre-school children can legitimately claim not to have been in a position to influence matters overmuch.

Second, if Greece is let off a large chunk of its debt, why wouldn’t other countries demand the same? Why should the Portuguese, Spanish, Italians, Irish, French and Belgians suffer tax rises and cuts to their public services if Greek debt is simply written down?

Third, and critically, there’s the problem that a Greek default within the euro doesn’t actually solve the underlying problem. It does something about the debt, but not the deficit. If Greek debt is (say) halved from around 140% of GDP to around 70%, they will still not be credit-worthy, because they’d still be running a deficit. There would still be a need for the IMF, EU and ECB troika to help the Greek government somehow bring revenue and expenditure into line. There’d still be a need for wealthy Greeks to pay more taxes, the Greek public sector to spend less and its economy somehow to grow. In the meantime there’d still be a need for someone to lend euros to Greece.

A Greek default within the euro would simply not have the usual effect of sovereign defaults because it would not be accompanied by devaluation.

In fact, the main effect of Greek default within the euro would be for the Greeks to say “thank you very much”. There’d still be a big hit on eurozone banks (including the Greek ones which would need to be recapitalised from somewhere, and not to mention the ECB), although not the automatic loss from lending to the Greek private sector that would occur in the case of option 1 (when devaluation would make it more difficult, to say the least, for Greek companies to service euro-denominated debt).

Now, it seems to me the troika must recognise this. If I was them I’d demand the budget reforms before allowing any kind of Greek default. In particular, the possibility of Greece having to leave the euro needs to be still on the table. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if there hasn’t been a nod and a wink to the off-message officials and politicians (usually German) who regularly float this possibility.

It seems the next payment to Greece is being put off to the last possible moment, even though stumping up is much better for everyone than the alternatives. What puzzles me is that the markets don’t recognise that this brinkmanship is a necessary part of the strategy of forcing Greece to balance its budget in the long-term.

What the Greeks should really be worrying about is the possibility that they haven’t resolved their fiscal problems by the time the rest of the eurozone has recovered (and in particular the banking sector has rebuilt its capital) sufficiently to withstand a Greek default, euro exit and devaluation. Then the eurocrats might just decide to throw them to the wolves.

Still, I wouldn’t rule out a collective loss of nerve and a Greek default within the euro. We’d have to muddle through somehow. If there’s a double-dip, there’s a double-dip – maybe that’s now the least we can expect; if there are further sovereign defaults, the sun will still come up the next morning; if we do end up calling it the Second Great Depression or a Lost Decade, life will still go on. As I said, some problems just have to be lived with.