I’ve joked on many occasions that bipartisanship occurs in Washington when the evil party and the stupid party come up with an idea that is simultaneously malicious and misguided.
The international version of two-wrongs-don’t-make-a-right occurs whenever the French and the Germans conspire on economic policy. The latest example is a joint proposal for “economic governance” for eurozone nations. Here are some blurbs from the BBC’s report.
The French and German leaders have called for “true economic governance” for the eurozone in response to the euro debt crisis. Speaking at a joint news conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged much closer economic and fiscal policy in the eurozone. …They also advocated a tax on financial transactions to raise more revenues.
I don’t pretend to have any predictive ability, but I’ll bet dollars-to-donuts that “true economic governance” will lead to more spending and higher taxes. Why? Because “economic governance” is just a sanitized way of describing a cartel of governments.
When politicians don’t have to worry as much about jobs and capital migrating to jurisdictions with less oppressive tax law, they will behave in a predictable fashion by raising tax rates. In other words, the weakening of tax competition is a recipe for bigger, more expensive government.
Indeed, the tax on financial transactions is a perfect example. Any one nation would be unlikely to impose this perverse levy for fear of losing business to neighbors. But if there’s a one-size-fits-all eurozone government, then bad policy becomes more feasible.
The only good news is that Merkel hasn’t totally lost her mind. Perhaps because her de facto socialist party is not doing well in the polls against the de jure socialist party in Germany, she is temporarily resisting the idea of “eurobonds.”
Ms Merkel again played down the chances of introducing “eurobonds” – jointly guaranteed debts of the 17 eurozone governments – as a solution to the crisis. The idea has been advocated by the Italian finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, as well as billionaire investor George Soros as a way of providing cheap financing to struggling governments while also incentivising them to put their finances in order.
The more profligate European governments like eurobonds for the same reason that California and Illinois would like to jointly issue debt with Texas. It’s a way for the spendthrift to free ride off the frugal.
And speculators like eurobonds because their holdings can dramatically rise in value when downside risk gets transferred to taxpayers (nothing wrong with speculation, by the way, so long as losses aren’t socialized).
Eurobonds might temporarily calm European markets, but only by setting the stage for a bigger collapse in the near future when the Germans are pulled underwater by their reckless neighbors.
For those who want more information, this video is a primer on the importance of jurisdictional competition.
