Meanwhile, back in Ireland

We've gotten to another point where it's hard for me to turn on the TV. I know this will have to change, but for now I'll go back to one of my favorite topics, the fate of Ireland under austerity.

As I suggested might happen, Ireland in its 2015-2016 immigration statistical year (May-April) was finally able to end its net emigration. According to the Central Statistical Office's August report, 3100 more people came to Ireland than left during 2015-2016. This was the first time since 2008-2009 that Ireland had net in-migration. Still, among the Irish themselves, net emigration continued in 2015-2016, with 10,700 more leaving than returning.

The unemployment rate declined again from Q3 2015 to Q3 2016, from from 9.3% to 8.0%. The monthly unemployment rate for January 2017 dropped to 7.1%. And yet...

While Q3 2016 employment increased by 57,500 to 2,040,500, this remains 5.6% below its Q1 2008 peak of 2,160,681. Things are finally getting better, but Ireland is still not all the way back.

By contrast, currency-devaluing, banker-jailing Iceland long ago passed its old employment peak (create your own table), which was 181,900 in August 2008. Employment reached a low point of 163,900 in February 2011, first surpassed the old peak in February 2015 (182,900), and in December 2016 stood at 194,400, or 6.9% above the pre-crisis peak.

Oh, and Iceland's unemployment rate? A seasonally adjusted 2.9% in December 2016, and only 2.6% without seasonal adjustment.

Maybe one day we'll talk about the Celtic Tiger again. But Ireland, hamstrung by its inability to devalue and by harsh austerity measures, shows lingering weakness, masked by emigration, to this day. Iceland, by contrast, is the one looking like a Nordic Tiger.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

It's official - Icelandic bankers have been jailed

If you've been following this blog over the last few years, you know that Iceland took the dramatic step of prosecuting top officers at the country's big 3 banks, all of which were allowed to go bankrupt in the wake of the 2008 financial collapse. Unlike Ireland, it did not turn bank debt into government debt, which increased Ireland's debt by close to 100% of gross national product (GNP) overnight. Though hit hard by the 50% drop of the krona, Iceland has managed a remarkable, though still incomplete, recovery marked by its renewed ability to borrow in foreign currency with less than a 1% risk premium and by achieving unemployment rates that Eurozone countries can only envy.

What you wouldn't know, if you just been looking at the headlines (Google "Iceland jails bankers" and you'll see what I mean), is that Iceland had not actually been jailing bankers. Here's a typical one from the BBC, "Iceland jails former Kaupthing bank bosses" (12 December 2013). In fact, nobody went to jail at that time: They were convicted, but all four Kaupthing officials appealed their sentences. If you search similarly titled stories, you will see that headline "jailings" were either convictions, or an affirmation of these lower court decisions by the Icelandic Supreme Court, neither of which actually led to immediate jailings. Indeed, one of the "Kaupthing Four," as they are now called, was living in Luxembourg (he had headed Kaupthing's Luxembourg branch), and I wondered to myself if could even be compelled to return to Iceland to serve his sentence.

Now I am happy to report that the Kaupthing Four are finally in jail in a minimum-security prison with only one road connecting it to the outside world, including the former CEO of Kaupthing's Luxembourg unit who was outside Iceland when his conviction was upheld. There have been an additional 22 convictions now at various stages in the appeals processes, and special prosecutor for the banking crimes, Olafur Hauksson, indicted five more bank officials for fraud and manipulating stock prices just last month.

As Kaupthing was Iceland's largest bank before the crash, jailing its top officials sends a reassuring sign that the rest of those convicted will eventually follow suit. Iceland thereby establishes a precedent we should continue to urge in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere that bankers are not too big to jail.

A note to readers: Bloomberg reporter Edward Robinson had not replied to a request for some clarifications at the time this story was published. If any of you know when the Kaupthing Four reported to prison, whether there are other bankers already in jail, or other useful news, please send along the information and I'll be happy to credit you. Thanks!

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

Ireland still isn't back

Ireland remains, in some circles, a poster child for austerity's success: It paid off its bailout loan early! It regained its 2007 Gross Nation Income per capita in 2014! Unemployment is only 8.9%! Don't believe the hype.

Paul Krugman recently pointed out that Ireland's employment performance continues to be dismal, especially in comparison with currency-devaluing, banker-prosecuting Iceland. Iceland's employment now exceeds its pre-crisis peak by about 2.5% whereas Ireland is still, 8 years later, 8% below its peak. More specifically, Irish employment peaked in Q1 2008 at 2,160,681; in Q3 of 2015, the figure was still only 1,983,000.

Not only that, but in 2014-2015 (May-April), Ireland continued with net emigration, as 11,600 more people left than came to Ireland. This was a substantial improvement of 9800 over the April 2014 figure, but still the trend is that Ireland is exporting unemployment literally.

Things are obviously getting better in Ireland for those who remain behind. Jobs are being created, and the number of unemployed has fallen. The April 2016 immigration report (the data are only reported once a year) may finally see an end to net emigration. But Ireland is 80% of the way to a lost decade, and isn't out of the woods yet.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

Iceland Bankers Convicted and Unemployment is Down

Remember Iceland? During the high-flying early 2000s, its three main banks went berserk, paying high interest rates to international investors that accumulated deposits equal to more than 100% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP) and making loans equal to 980% of GDP. When the collapse came, Iceland took a route not taken by Ireland, Spain, and other EU countries: Rather than bail out the banks, the government simply let them go bankrupt. The value of the krona fell by about half, the country was embroiled in disputes with the Netherlands and the United Kingdom over paying off Dutch and British depositors, and it had to take an International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan just to stay afloat.

When we last checked in, there were indictments and criminal investigations of the officers of all three banks, and Icelandic banks were forced to forgive all mortgage debt in excess of 110% of a home's value. Iceland's 2012 unemployment rate was 6.0% compared to Ireland's 14.7%. But that was two years ago; what's happening now?

In December 2013, four top officials of the country's formerly largest bank, Kaupthing, were sentenced to jail terms ranging from five and a half years for its chief executive to three years for one of the majority owners. While their cases are currently under appeal, they were indicted this July for further fraud charges. Various bank and government officials have had final convictions as determined by the Supreme Court of Iceland; Wikipedia has a handy rundown on where numerous cases stand, all based on Icelandic-language sources so I cannot read them myself.

Homeowners are still in difficulty in Iceland, however. This is because mortgages in Iceland are usually indexed to the inflation rate; that is, the amount of principal is increased by the rate of inflation. Iceland's inflation rate was 5.2% in 2012 and 3.9% in 2013, while Ireland's inflation was 1.7% in 2012 and a near-deflation 0.5% in 2013. That is a pretty hefty load for Icelandic homeowners. The current conservative government has instituted a new round of mortgage relief, but there are a lot of devils in the details. Almost half of the "relief" comes in the form of people being allowed to use their retirement savings  (which are tax-advantaged like U.S. individual retirement accounts) to pay down their debt. Yeah, it's great to pay your mortgage with pre-tax dollars, but it's still your own money you're paying, which will no longer be available for retirement. The IMF has raised doubts about the plan's overall effect on government finances, too.

As I mentioned in my last post, unemployment in Iceland stood at 4.4% in July, versus 11.5% in Ireland (navigate to Labour Force Statistics, then Short-term Statistics, Short-term Labour Market Statistics, then Harmonised Unemployment Rates). And, as I also mentioned in the post, Ireland's unemployment rate has been artificially lowered due to net emigration from the country.

While Iceland suffered a great deal from the crisis and is by no means out of the woods, it looks like the country made the right call by not bailing out the banks. The economy is growing and unemployment is down to less than half of its peak crisis level. As Paul Krugman has emphasized, having your own currency to devalue helps as well, although it substantially raised inflation and mortgage balances. Iceland was dealt a bad hand by its bankers, but it's making at least some of them pay for that, which is more than we can say in the United States.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

Irish Austerity Exodus Lingers On

August brings us the annual Irish immigration data, so it's time to look at what has happened in their statistical reporting "year" that ended in April 2014. While better than last year, it's still not pretty.

According to the Central Statistics Office, net emigration continued in 2013-14, with net emigration of 21,400. a decline of just over 1/3 compared to net emigration of 33,100 in 2012-13. Of the new total, once again, the Irish themselves accounted for over 100% of the net departures, with 29,200 more Irish nationals leaving the country than returning.

This continued out-migration continues to diminish any published improvements in Irish employment numbers and unemployment rate. In the year to the second quarter of 2014 (the closest quarter to April 2014 immigration figures), employment  increased to 1,901,600, a rise of 31,600 over a year previous. Unemployment fell by even more, 46,200, in the year to Q2 2014. So, while there is definite improvement even accounting for emigration, Ireland is nowhere near back to its peak 2007 employment figure of about 2.15 million. So employment is still 11.6% below its peak.

In Iceland (create a custom table here), by contrast, despite (but also in part because of of) the almost 50% decline in the value of the kronor, the sharp dip in unemployment has been almost completely erased, with July 2014's value of 179,000 employed being a mere 1.7% below May 2008's maximum of 182,100. Indeed, Iceland's unemployment rate has fallen to a mere 4.4% in July 2014, compared with 6.2% in the United States -- and 11.5% in Ireland.

So the lesson, if I have haven't pounded it into your head enough already, is that Ireland's austerity measures are not paying off, as it has failed to regain its pre-crisis employment level  and has seen its unemployment rate fall only by reverting to its historical solution of exporting people, as in the 1980s.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

Iceland Solves Banking Crisis by Indicting CEOs, Forcing Mortgage Relief

Via Mark Thoma's Economist View, I came across an interesting blog on financial regulation called Trust Your Instincts. Lately, the author, "Richard," has written a set of posts comparing two models of dealing with the financial crisis, which he calls the Swedish model (used by Sweden and Iceland) and the Japanese model (used by Japan, the U.S., and the U.K.).

Here is his description of the two models:

Regular readers know that under the Japanese model losses on the excesses in the financial system are only recognized as banks generate the capital to absorb them.  This is good for banks because the model involves hiding their true condition and pursuing policies designed to boost bank earnings.  It is bad for the economy because it distorts asset prices and access to capital (for proof, look at the performance of Japan's economy).

The alternative is a Swedish model that is bad for banks and good for the economy.  It is bad for banks because they are required to recognize the losses on the excesses in the financial system today.  It is good for the economy because it avoids the distortion in asset prices and access to funding associated with hiding the losses under the Japanese model (for proof, look at the performance of Sweden's economy).

 Richard points to recent events in Iceland as another successful application of Sweden's model. There, the country's banks forgave loans equivalent to 13% of gross domestic product, according to a Bloomberg article Richard cites. The equivalent in the United States would be about $1.95 trillion of mortgage debt writedowns. Icelandic banks agreed to forgive all mortgage debt over 110% of a home's value.

Not only that, Bloomberg relates a development that would meet, I believe, with the approval of Tea Party members and Occupy protesters alike: Bankers were held personally liable for crashing the country's economy. The CEO's of the country's three largest banks are among 200 who are facing criminal charges, and a special prosecutor expects up to 90 more indictments. The contrast with the United States could not be more obvious.

While Iceland is a tiny country with a population of only 317,000 and a $13 billion GDP, Trust Your Instincts is not the only blog paying attention to it. As Paul Krugman wrote yesterday, "I think I may have been one of the first commentators with a wide audience to point out how relatively well Iceland was doing." What he didn't mention, though his commentator "iInfoliner" did, is that the credit rating agency Fitch upgraded Iceland's debt to investment grade last week. Moreover, according to the Business Week story, the country can now borrow in U.S. dollars at a mere 4.77%. Compare this to Greece at 35.98% and Portugal at 12.77%; even Spain and Italy are a little over 5% (the FT link has no rates listed for Ireland).

The moral of the story is that a different approach to dealing with the banks is necessary, both to restore the U.S. economy but to prosecute financiers who broke the law. As it stands, bankers have gotten off scot-free while the country's economic growth has been largely anemic. While the job market has shown a few flickers of life recently, the country needs millions of jobs just to get back where it was before the crash, which actually wasn't all that good a situation for the middle class to begin with.

It could be worse, I suppose. As Richard says, Japan's economy remains smaller than 15 years ago. But Ben Bernanke was rumored to have learned the lessons of the Japanese experience. Whatever happened to that guy?