Tax Cuts Alone Won't Boost Employment

Terry submits an email saying:

"Tax cuts to increase American companies' ability to compete, lower corporate tax rates, lower capital gains rates and repatriate that $500B plus overseas that companies don't want to pay 35% confiscatory tax rates on. Stop pandering to the lowest common denominator and grease the skids for what has made this country great, CAPITALISM!"

I agree with one of the three tax ideas Terry supports; the last one. The other two, while certainly fine on their own merits, don't do anything to boost job growth, which is why our economy is in the tank right now After all, consumers represent 70% of our GDP and when they are losing their jobs, they have less money to spend.

Corporate tax reductions would boost stock prices (which I would obviously be happy about) but they don't directly create jobs. But if companies have more money, won't they hire more workers? Not if they don't need more workers! Corporate America is shedding jobs because they need fewer people now that demand for their products has dropped. The current round of layoffs is being done to "right-size" their organizations for the amount of business they have now, which is less than it was during the loose credit, low unemployment era of 2004-2007.

Without increased demand, there is no need for a larger workforce, and therefore companies won't hire people. Profits would increase, making share prices more valuable and it easier to pay dividends and buyback stock to boost shareholder value (which is why Wall Street would applaud corporate tax reductions), but without the need for more workers, companies won't hire just for the heck of it, even if they have more money that is not being sent to the government.

I'm all for corporate tax reductions, but they aren't getting much traction right now because the focus is on job creation because the unemployment rate is on track to double between 2007 and 2009 (~4.5% to ~9.0%). With consumers representing the bulk of our economy, job loss is truly the thorn in our side.

I have written before about the capital gains tax argument, and I find it even less compelling than corporate tax reductions for two reasons:

1) Nobody has any capital gains

The stock market has fallen 50% and housing prices are down 25%. Most taxpayers who have investments are going to deduct capital losses on their tax returns because very few things are being sold for a profit right now. Now, they should certainly increase the annual maximum capital loss deduction (it has been $3,000 for too long), but reducing the capital gains tax rate actually hurts those of us who are deducting stock market losses on our tax returns because we would get a smaller deduction if the rate was lowered!

2) Investments are not made based on tax rates

The argument against that first point focuses on future investments, not money that has already been allocated. If capital gains tax rates are low, the argument goes, people will have more of an incentive to invest and capital will again flow into the economy.

I love the idea of incentive-based policy, but this idea assumes that investor capital is sitting on the sidelines right now because capital gains taxes are too high. I think that is completely wrong. People stop investing if they think they'll lose money and they invest more if they think they'll make money. Nobody is going to forgo an investment they believe they can make a killing on because they have to pay 15% capital gains tax on any profit they make. Incentives are great, but they have to target the things that prompt whatever behavior you are trying to promote.

Obama Housing Plan Details

Lots of people are already complaining about Obama's housing plan unveiled yesterday based on the presumption that it is bailing out lenders and homeowners who made poor decisions at the expense of those who are paying their mortgages on time each month. Here are the details of the actual plan, which don't seem as bad as some are claiming with respect to moral hazard.

1) Allow Responsible Homeowners to Refinance their Existing Mortgage (4 to 5 million households)

You may not think the government would need to intervene in order for this to happen, but Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac do not guarantee loans if the loan amount is more than 80% of the home's value. This is a problem in the current housing environment because with housing prices dropping so rapidly, home owners who are paying their mortgage on time still may not qualify for a refinance, even if they are current and simply want to lower their payments since interest rates have fallen.

The Obama plan lifts the loan-to-value cap for refinances to 105% from 80%. As a result, responsible home owners who want to refinance their mortgage to a lower rate can do so, as long as their loan balance is no more than 105% of their home's value. This change will reduce monthly payments for many responsible borrowers and therefore help prevent future foreclosures.

2) Offer Incentives to Lenders and Borrowers to Modify At-Risk Mortgages (3 to 4 million households)

Since not all mortgages are guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie, Obama's plan provides incentives for lenders to work with borrowers who are at-risk of default before they become delinquent. Currently most lenders require you to be a few months behind on your mortgage before they work with you on a loan modification.

This plan offers lenders cash payments for every modification they complete. To prevent lenders from dropping the monthly payment by a very small amount simply to collect the upfront fee, they are offering another incentive payment if the loan remains current for a year after the modification.

As for what amount the monthly payments should be adjusted to, the government is offering incentives for loans that total no more than 38% of the borrowers income. The government will subsidize the mortgage interest by 7% of income, so that the monthly payment will equal 31% of monthly income.

The lender will still decide if it wants to modify a loan or not, so the government is not forcing them to do anything, but merely providing incentives to try and reduce future foreclosures for at-risk mortgages. If you lose your job and are facing foreclosure, adjusting your payment to 31% of income may allow you to keep your home in some cases, but clearly not all of them. Investment properties owned by speculators do not qualify under this program.

Will Obama's Stimulus Plan Work?

As President Obama gets ready to sign the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act later today, a common question is, will it work? Of course we won't know for a while, but my honest non-partisan opinion is "a little bit." There is little doubt that parts of the bill are positive for our country and the employment situation, whereas others are likely to not do us any good. I think that the extreme views on either side, that this bill will either bring us out of recession or make it far worse, are both unfounded.

In particular, there are some people that insist FDR's New Deal in the 1930's prolonged the Great Depression, and only when World War II began did the economy rebound. They use this argument to imply that this stimulus bill (a mini New Deal of sorts) will further cripple our economy. I just wanted to share the chart below with everyone in order to debunk this myth.

depressiongdp.gif

Arguing that government spending does not create jobs is pretty silly. You can certainly take the position that government should not do anything (let the market work!), or that we are spending too much money when we are already in debt (to the tune of $10 trillion!), but denying that building a road, or upgrading a power grid, or funding medical research grants will require incremental workers is a pretty strange assertion.

The idea that tax cuts are a better means to create jobs is odd too because giving a tax cut to an unemployed person (who isn't earning any money) doesn't really help them very much, and it certainly doesn't get their job back. An extra $13 per week (or whatever the number is) might help people pay their bills, but it can't boost demand enough to force companies to need to hire more workers to meet that demand.

All in all, I think this bill is far from perfect and I don't think it will have the same impact as the New Deal did on our economy. That said, there is no reason to think it won't have some impact. Probably not enough to return to positive economic growth and falling unemployment anytime soon, but before we can grow again we have to halt the decline and hopefully this bill can contribute to that goal. Everyone should hope it works, whether you supported it or not.

Why Fair Value For The S&P 500 Is Not 440

Barry Ritholtz, market veteran and blogger over at The Big Picture postulated today that fair value for the S&P 500 might be 440. He got there by taking trailing 12 month GAAP earnings of $28.75 and applying a 15 P/E ratio to them.

Personally, I expect more from Barry given how strong much of his market and economic analysis has been over the years, but there are glaring flaws in this valuation methodology. First, I don't know very many market strategists who believe fair value on the S&P 500 should be based on the earnings produced by the index's components in the depths of a deep recession. Most people agree that fair value should be based on an estimate of normalized earnings, not trough (or near-trough) profit levels.

Imagine you owned a Burlington Coat Factory retail store. You are ready to retire and have a business person interested in buying your store. What would your reaction be if this person took your store's profit for the month of June, multiplied it by 12, and based his offer price on that level of projected annual profits. Clearly that figure does not give an accurate representation of how much money your store earns in a year because June is probably one of your worst months of the year for selling coats!

The same flaw exists in valuing the stock market based on current earnings. Doing so implies that earnings today represent a typical economic climate, which is clearly not the case.

The second issue with Barry's analysis is the use of "as-reported" GAAP earnings. The reason GAAP earnings have fallen so fast is that they include non-cash charges such as asset impairments. It is common these days for companies to report cash earnings of $1 billion but a GAAP loss of $5 billion due to a $6 billion asset impairment charge. In such a case GAAP earnings (which include the non-cash charge) are understated by a whopping $6 billion. Why should asset impairments be excluded? A stock's value is based on the present value of future free cash flow. Since cash flow is what matters to investors when valuing the market and specific stocks, non-cash accounting adjustments (such as asset impairments) don't really play a role in fair value estimations.

The interesting thing is that you don't have to take my word for it on this topic if you don't want to. The very fact that the market is trading about 50% below its all-time high and yet still trades at 29 times trailing GAAP earnings (S&P 500 at 834 divided by 28.75) is excellent evidence that using GAAP earnings during a recession will not result in an accurate estimate of fair value in the eyes of most investors.

Intuitive Surgical Buyout Talk Likely Overblown, But Stock Could Approach Attractive Levels When Rumors Subside

If you follow the market closely you may know the name Intuitive Surgical (ISRG). The maker of the expensive da Vinci robotic surgical system had been one of the hottest stocks in recent years before the market took a tumble. At its high of more than $350 per share, the stock commanded a startling P/E of more than 70 but the recent market correction brought the shares back down to earth, to less than $100 earlier this year.

ISRG stock has soared well above $100 (it is $107 as I write this) in part due to rumors that Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) was considering making a bid for the company. JNJ has been active in acquiring medical companies lately, but this rumor is one that seems to be started by the hedge fund community more than by industry insiders.

If the same rumor keeps coming up over and over again (like this one) but a deal never materializes, it is usually a sign that it really is just a rumor. In the fast moving trading world, especially with a high flier like ISRG, starting a quick rumor can cause an immediate reaction in the market, and profits for those who start spreading it.

Since ISRG shares have come down so much from their obscene highs, I took a quick look to see if JNJ was even mildly interested, whether the price would be right or not. To my surprise, ISRG stock is not that expensive, thanks to the recent plunge. I am not in the camp that thinks JNJ will make a run at the company right now, but even on a standalone basis ISRG has an impressive cash hoard of $900 million, or about $22 per share, and no debt. I quickly calculated core operating earnings last year to be around $4.75 per share, so applying a very conservative multiple of 15x and adding back the company's cash gets you to a price per share in the mid 90's ($93 to be exact).

Considering ISRG was trading below $100 before these rumors resurfaced, any drop back to that level appears to be a very reasonable price for investors who like the company's prospects. And if a deal does come to fruition (I can't believe ISRG management would be inclined to do a deal at these prices), that would just be an added bonus.

Full Disclosure: No position in ISRG at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

NYT: You Need $1.6 Million A Year To Live In New York City

It might be one of the silliest stories I have read in a long time. On Friday, Allen Salkin of the New York Times wrote a piece entitled "You Try to Live on 500K in This Town" in which he argues that a family of four needs to earn around $1.6 million just to cover living expenses in New York city.

The article is aimed at criticizing the Obama administration's proposal to limit the base salary of top executives at AIG, Bank of America, and Citigroup to $500,000 per year as long as their companies are staying afloat thanks to government aid. The argument is kind of short-sighted anyway, given that the executives in question already have net worths in the tens (or even hundreds) of millions of dollars, and therefore forgoing huge salaries for a couple of years is not going to result in their lavish Manhattan apartments being foreclosed on.

Nonetheless, the idea that the very executives who are largely to blame for the financial crisis should not have to make any financial sacrifices, like the rest of the country is being forced to, is pretty ridiculous. I highly doubt the content of this article is going to win any sympathy from the vast majority of people reading it, but maybe that's just me. What do you think of Mr. Salkin's argument?

Strong Arguments Can Be Made Against Mark-to-Market Accounting

One can make the case pretty easily that mark-to-market accounting has played a huge role in the deterioration of the nation's leading banking franchises. Essentially, many banks across the country are being forced to write down the value of investment securities even if little or no loss has been, or is expected to be, incurred. Such writedowns are forcing banks to raise capital to cover losses that in many cases are never going to occur. Does that make any sense, or should banks report losses when they actually lose money? That is the key question surrounding the mark-to-market debate.

Consider the following example. Bank of New York Mellon (BK) presented at the Citi Financial Services Conference on January 28th and included the following slide in their presentation:

bnymtmslide.png

As you can see, the company wrote down its securities portfolio by more than $1.2 billion in the fourth quarter but based on the principal and interest payments these securities are producing, they only expect to lose about $200 million. Mark-to-market accounting rules are forcing them to take more than $1 billion in writedowns in excess of what they they believe will really be lost. Practices like this are undoubtedly putting more stress on the banking system than is necessary.

I have no problem requiring firms to write down assets before a loss is actually taken if they believe they will actually have a loss in the future. But to require them to take losses based on wildly volatile market prices (which are often inefficient in turbulent times like today) rather than the actual cash flows being generated from the securities seems like a poor way of disclosing the financial position of our banking system.

Full Disclosure: No position in BK at the time of writing, but positions may change at any time

Economy Continues to Deteriorate, But Stock Market Treads Water

Market strategists call it a "bottoming process" or "building a base." The chart below shows the S&P 500 over the last three months and you can see what they are talking about. Earnings estimates keep dropping, job cuts keep pushing up the unemployment rate, GDP continues to contract, but the S&P has been going sideways in a range between 750 and 950, even in the face of three months of bad news. No rally has been sustainable, but the market isn't getting significantly worse.

spx3monthsfeb3.gif

Some think this trend is a good thing, others would like to see the market rising in the face of bad news, but it is too early for the latter. There is no doubt that it is a positive sign that the market seems to have come to grips with the reality that job losses will continue, corporate profits in 2009 will stink, and the unemployment rate is headed well over 8% this year (from 7.2% currently). Since the market discounts future events ahead of time, current market prices appear to have priced in the consensus economic forecasts for 2009. Of course, we don't know if those assumptions will prove accurate or not. Only time will tell on that front.

For those looking for a large market advance, we likely won't get one that is sustainable until the economy shows signs of stabilizing. Just like stocks hit bottom before the economic statistics got worse, stocks will begin to rise before the economy begins to grow again, but we are likely facing months of stagnation before that happens. As a result, the last three months of sideways market action makes sense. Things might not get too much worse than most are expecting, but a recovery is going to take time.

U.S. Economy Can't Truly Recover If Policies Turn Protectionist

What a shame. The $800 billion+ stimulus bill being crafted in Congress isn't that impressive. Sure, there are some very good ideas that made their way into the legislation that will create jobs and improve the efficiency of our economy (infrastructure spending on roads, bridges, and the power grid, for example) but it seems for every good idea there is a bad idea to match it. Thank goodness they took funding for STD prevention out of the bill. There is nothing wrong with supporting the measure, but it certainly does not belong in an economic stimulus bill.

The part that is perhaps getting the most attention is one that would require that all infrastructure projects be completed using 100% American made materials. Somebody even proposed an idea that requires U.S. companies to fire foreign workers first, before letting go of any U.S. workers. These kinds of protectionist policies are absolutely horrible ideas.

It is a shame that our elected officials seem to write laws without ever consulting those who are educated in the area they are trying to legislate. Any economist or CEO will tell you that such policies will backfire. Congress seems to think that requiring Caterpillar to use U.S. steel in their industrial equipment will stem job loss in the U.S. because more steel workers will be needed to produce the steel. Sounds logical if you halt the analysis there.

In reality, though, Caterpillar will have to raise the prices of their equipment under such a scenario because domestic steel is more expensive. All of the sudden, Cat's prices are above those of their competitors and their customers will start buying from other companies instead to save money. As Cat's sales drop, they need to fire more workers, hardly the original intent of the policy.

The problem is we are in a global economy and the U.S. is no longer the fastest growing, most financially strong nation in the world. If U.S. companies ignore their foreign customers and competitors, our future will be bleak.

Someone will probably soon suggest that we protect jobs at home by requiring the Big Three automakers use materials made exclusively in the U.S. If that happened, U.S. car prices would be higher than their foreign competition, U.S. consumers would have fewer reasons to buy U.S. cars (in the long run, supporting your country by making a poor financial decision hurts the U.S. more than it helps it) and the Big Three would sell fewer cars, not more of them.

I think most people agree that a properly structured stimulus bill could be helpful for our economy, but couple the pork projects that would do little to boost jobs and growth with protectionist policies and any good measures in the bill could very well be quickly offset by bone-headed decisions elsewhere. From what we know so far, it doesn't look like this upcoming bill will be anywhere near as good as it could have been, which is truly a shame.