Judges and Pay

The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court isn't above whining:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/washington/20bar.html

Justice Roberts feels judicial pay is too low. According to the article, federal district judges make $169,300; federal appeals court judges, $179,500; Supreme Court justices, $208,100; and the chief justice, $217,400.

Basically, Justice Roberts is saying that $169,300 + full health care benefits + a pension + absolute job security (federal judges get lifetime appointments) are not enough to attract talent. What really infuriates me is that he calls the more-than-adequate pay scale a "constitutional crisis." This is the same man who thought everything was peachy in Guantanamo and voted against giving detainees due process rights. But when it comes to getting paid 169K a year, Justice Roberts suddenly invokes the Constitution? Perhaps Justice Roberts is tinkering with a legal doctrine involving the fine art of douchebaggery.

The 1/19/09 NY Times article cleverly implies that Justice Roberts' primary argument relies on appealing to a nebulous "human dimension."

NASDAQ Short Interest Schedule

If you're interested in who's shorting NASDAQ-listed stocks, click here:

http://www.nasdaqtrader.com/Trader.aspx?id=ShortIntPubSch

The next information release date is today, January 27, 2009, after 1:00PM Pacific Standard Time. "Days to cover" refers to the number of days it would take for the short sellers to buy back stock. The number of "days to cover" comes from dividing the number of shares sold short by the company's average daily volume.

You can interpret the level of short interest in at least three ways:

1. If short interest declined, it usually means investors are more optimistic about the stock.

2. If short interest increased or is high, it means many investors (or some big investors) are pessimistic about the stock.

3. If you're a contrarian, however, you would view a high level of short interest (or a dramatic increase in short interest) as a positive sign. If the short sellers are wrong, at some point, they all have to buy back the stock. Thus, assuming bankruptcy is not an option, a high level of short interest can establish a floor for a stock's price. This is because short sellers must buy back the stock at some point, and many short sellers are inclined to take profits as soon as possible. When short sellers start buying back stock, it results in a "short squeeze," which can drive out other short sellers and cause an increase in the stock's price.

I am particularly interested in the level of short interest in Intel (INTC). Intel recently announced layoffs, and now, all of its bad news is already public. Therefore, assuming short sellers are rational, they would have covered their positions, leading to a decline in short interest.

On the other hand, I'm biased--I wrote earlier that Intel's stock price would move up because most of the negative information has been released, and I'm bullish on the stock. Given its superior market position--which some might call monopolistic--and its stable financial condition, Intel at between 12 and 14 dollars may represent a good opportunity for long-term investors.

Disclosure: I own shares of Intel (INTC).

Green Tea Bubble

Looks like China had its own version of the Dutch tulip bubble:

From 1999 to 2007, the price of Pu'er, a fermented brew invented by Tang Dynasty traders, increased tenfold, to a high of $150 a pound for the finest aged Pu'er, before tumbling far below its pre-boom levels.

For tens of thousands of wholesalers, farmers and other Chinese citizens who poured their money into compressed disks of tea leaves, the crash of the Pu'er market has been nothing short of disastrous. Many investors were led to believe that Pu'er prices could only go up.

Green tea bubbles? Now I've seen everything.

Hat tip to Jeff E. for the link.

California's Tipping Point?

[Note: this post has been revised since its original publication.]

Investors should be worried. California's unemployment rate just skyrocketed, and Bay Area employers are laying off thousands of employees. As the eighth largest economy in the world, California and its consumers move worldwide markets. Shannon Love writes about California taxpayers and tax consumers here. Ms. Love talks about a tipping point, which is reached when state employees achieve enough power and money to dictate to the people. Once this tipping point is reached, she says, "it is only a matter of time before civil servants become civil masters."

Former Presidential nominee Barry Goldwater said it even better: "A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away." I've echoed similar concerns here and here. Despite the danger of overweening government, nothing seems to jolt the average American citizen and voter into action. This is particularly distressing, because informed citizens seem to have become apathetic to the government's siphoning of taxpayer dollars.

Take this 1/22/09 SJ Mercury news op-ed, for example. The writers chastise a San Jose City Councilmember for trying to rein in profligate spending and public sector union demands. However, in promoting more government benefits, they reveal just how stunningly fat government employees have become.

Mr. Bruce De Mers and John Diquisto write: "[M]ost police and fire retirees left public service well before the advent of 90 percent retirements." [Emphasis added.] There's no way to escape the reasonable inference from this statement. We are being told that at least some current police and fire retirees will receive around 90% of their salary after retirement. This isn't an uninformed slip--Mr. De Mers is president of the Association of Retired San Jose Police Officers and Fire Fighters, so he knows his numbers. The writers forget to mention the lifetime medical benefits also given to police and firefighter retirees, but after getting 90% of your salary in retirement, why add fiscal insult to fiscal injury? I can't find a non-executive private sector worker in San Jose who gets 90% of his salary at retirement and lifetime medical benefits--and I'm an employment attorney, so I've met my share of San Jose workers. (As I explain below, I am not against paying police officers and firefighters high salaries--I am against paying any public employee hard-to-calculate and unpredictable benefits.)

But let's get back to the article. It contains the usual platitudes, such as, "Panic is not productive. Promoting panic is a disservice to the public." Informed people should read between the lines. Our government officials want us to remain calm--while they dig deeper into our pockets. Unsurprisingly, the writers resort to the public safety argument: "Attacking retirees who risked their safety to make San Jose one of the safest big cities in America may feel good. [T]hat doesn't make it right."

Newsflash: if more police kept cities safe, or if police were even a substantial catalyst for safety, then New York City, Oakland, and Baltimore would be almost crime-free. (Last time I checked, they had plenty of police officers.) In reality, police and firefighters are just two components in the public safety analysis. The determinative factor in public safety is the composition of the residents themselves--especially their education levels. For example, imagine a city with 1,000 cops and 1,000 gang members, most of whom lack a college degree. Will there be more violent crime in that city, or in a city with 50 cops and 50,000 accountants, doctors, and engineers? And yes, that's a rhetorical question.

Most Santa Clara County residents have a college degree--61%, by some accounts. College-educated adults tend to be less interested in drugs and dangerous behavior, and somewhat more likely to be married. These traits generally lead to law-abiding behavior.

Ultimately, the police and firefighters' unions do Santa Clara County residents a disservice when they claim to be the primary cause of our safety. It's almost as if they are saying, "Pay us off, and you'll be safe. Don't pay us off, and, well...who knows?" Combine financial self-interest with political power, and you have a ready-made recipe for oppression, or at least government-sanctioned extortion.

Investors must realize that public sector retirement benefits are a stock market issue, not just a political issue. Continuing generous government benefits will affect stock market gains in several ways. First, public sector retirement plans aren't necessarily linked to the stock market--CalPERS, for example, can invest in hard assets, like timber and land, as well as other investments unavailable to ordinary people. (CalPERS controls around 239 billion dollars, and its investment decisions move markets.) Having a separate, two-track retirement system allows government to invest taxpayer money with little regard for the retirement prospects of ordinary citizens. Consequently, while non-government investors must rely on an ever-increasing stock market to retire, public sector unions and their employees are not so inhibited. Not being similarly situated, they may take actions to inhibit corporate profits and, in turn, stock market gains.

In fact, there is no question that continuing government's generous retirement benefits will drain taxpayers, providing them with less discretionary income. General Motors (GM) and Ford (F) are two analogous examples. Like the United States, they have deficits and are losing money. Just like government unions, the UAW lavished their employees with generous retiree benefits during flush times. As a result, until 2007, a Ford (F) employee's average hourly wage was $71.00/hour--but with only $29/hr going to actual wages. Around forty percent (40%) of the total hourly wage went to retiree benefits and health insurance programs. (See WSJ, 1/22/09, A12.) Meanwhile, foreign automakers pay around $49/hr to their employees and still manage to create better products and have better service.

Basically, GM and Ford became non-competitive (at least until declaring bankruptcy and/or gaining union concessions) because they offered generous retirement and medical benefits based on overly optimistic actuarial projections. The costs of their programs--like America's public sector pensions--are linked to the life expectancies of retirees and future profits/tax revenue; therefore, without a crystal ball, true costs are difficult to predict.

Since it's difficult to ascertain the exact costs of benefit programs--which, like construction projects, often take longer and usually go over budget--prudent persons would favor cutting hard-to-measure benefits and then increasing present-day salaries.  If the private sector--with its self-interested, sophisticated shareholders--couldn't restrict union health and retirement benefits to a manageable level, what chance does California have? After all, unions in California have heavy influence over a majority of California legislators. To be clear, I am not anti-union--I am against unpredictable and hard-to-calculate government costs, especially costs that are passed off to future generations. We simply cannot expect the government to consistently and accurately predict the lifespan of all government workers, the number of its retirees in any given year, or the future health and medical conditions of all of its retirees. Yet, in order to accurately predict future costs in any system that provides pensions and lifetime medical benefits to millions of people, the government would have to act as a financial soothsayer, which it has been unable to do.

Unions, both private and public, were originally great ideas (See the film, Harlan County, U.S.A.). However, like most entities with billions of dollars of influence and political involvement, many of the largest unions have become corrupt and unwilling to look at the big picture. If GM and Ford are any indication, California's state budget could end up allocating 40% of our taxes to government retiree/health benefits and still not produce a balanced budget or better service. Like Ford and GM, if the status quo continues, California will become non-competitive. But that's not all. Ford and GM recently considered bankruptcy but were bailed out by the White House at the last minute. Although some California cities have filed for bankruptcy because of overly generous public sector benefits, an entire state has never gone bankrupt. Who's going to bail out California if it goes bankrupt? Will we see the day when California has to offer a 25% interest rate on its bonds to attract investors?

Finally, generous government benefits create major mis-alignments of interest. Having two separate retirement systems--one for Joe the Plumber and another for Sally the Cop--allows the government dangerous leverage against ordinary citizens. The day may come when CalPERS says, "If you don't give us what we want, we'll pull all our money out of the stock market, invest it someplace else, and you can kiss your 401(k)s goodbye." Sound implausible? Until recently, so was the idea that our federal government would give $700 billion to financial institutions without strict oversight. Also, don't forget that just ten years ago, banks like Citigroup (C) looked ready to take over the world. Now, of course, Citigroup (C) sells for around $3/share and is looking for a bailout.

Citizens should develop an eye for non-violent oppression. An oppressive government doesn't need to lock you up or arrest you to control you--it just needs to take enough money from you to buy off politicians and pass laws favoring them over regular folks. Investors, both foreign and domestic, need to stop being calm about overly generous government benefits and take action. Future generations of taxpayers--namely, our children--deserve nothing less.

Bonus: more on California's government unions HERE:

Approximately 85% of the state’s 235,000 employees (not including higher education employees) are unionized. As the governor noted during his $83 billion budget roll-out, over the past decade pension costs for public employees increased 2,000%. State revenues increased only 24% over the same period. A Schwarzenegger adviser [Pat Dando] wrote in the San Jose Mercury News in the past few days that, “This year alone, $3 billion was diverted to pension costs from other programs.” There are now more than 15,000 government retirees statewide who receive pensions that exceed $100,000 a year, according to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility.

Many of these retirees are former police officers, firefighters, and prison guards who can retire at age 50 with a pension that equals 90% of their final year’s pay. The pensions for these (and all other retirees) increase each year with inflation and are guaranteed by taxpayers forever—-regardless of what happens in the economy or whether the state’s pensions funds have been fully funded (which they haven’t been).[Steven Greenhut, WSJ, 1/22/10]

Conservatism Defined

Here is an interesting website about conservatism:

http://www.conservative-resources.com/definition-of-conservative.html

The author defines conservatism as the following:

1. Belief in natural law
2. Belief in established institutions
3. Preference for liberty over equality
4. Suspicion of power— and of human nature
5. Belief in exceptionalism
6. Belief in the individual

As far as simple categories go, it's not a bad list; however, when defining a conservative (also known as a "classical liberal"), I prefer to use Milton Friedman's principles:

1. The scope of government must be limited.
2. Government power must be dispersed.
3. "The power to do good is also the power to harm; those who control the power today may not tomorrow; and, more important, what one man regards as good, another may regard as harm."

The author of "Conservative Resources" has another interesting post, where he compares liberals to conservatives:

http://www.conservative-resources.com/liberal-vs-conservative.html

It's good to see intelligent commentary about different political groups. Categories aside, I look forward to the day when America has a viable third party. A viable third party might force both Democrats and Republicans to move to the center, where most Americans are.

I wrote here that a third major party would most likely result when more conservative factions within the Republican Party decided to create a splinter group.

Futures, Intel, and Silicon Valley

I am staying up late preparing for a trial next week. Out of habit, I checked the futures:

http://www.bloomberg.com/markets/stocks/futures.html

DJIA INDEX	7,893.00	-199.00	8,051.00	8,093.00	7,889.00	05:02
S&P 500	802.60	-22.90	824.50	826.40	801.50	05:02
NASDAQ 100	1,143.50	-28.75	1,171.00	1,171.75	1,142.25	05:02
S&P/TSE 60	508.90	-16.30	515.50	519.00	504.40	01/22
MEX BOLSA	19,469.00	-154.00	19,400.00	19,850.00	19,100.00	01/22
BOVESPA	38,371.00	-428.00	39,400.00	39,400.00	37,500.00	01/22

As of around 2:19AM PST, futures are down 199 points. If General Electric (GE), which is reporting in a few hours, tells the Street it will cut its dividend or do nothing to sustain its credit rating, we are going to be in for a really bad day. I wouldn't rule out Dow 7500 if GE reports particularly poor results.

In other news, it appears my prediction that Intel stock will reach 14 dollars this week will be proven incorrect. My average buy price is around $13.50/share, so I am not concerned (Update on January 28, 2009: Intel stock today increased above $14/share). With the upcoming dividend payout, I will have an opportunity to buy more shares while I wait for Intel to return to more reasonable levels.

For now, Intel appears to be in full-blown cost-cutting mode. Bloomberg recently reported that Intel is shutting down its Santa Clara, CA chip factory:

There are no incentives to have sizable manufacturing operations in Silicon Valley. The Valley is hugely focused on intellectual property and innovation, rather than on manufacturing.

"Silicon Valley, CA" may now be a misnomer. As Cypress Semiconductor's CEO T.J. Rodgers warned earlier, employers are leaving the Bay Area in droves, taking manufacturing operations with them:

Few people know it, but so-called Silicon Valley is not really Silicon Valley anymore--almost all of the wafer fabrication plants have been shut down due to the hostile business climate.

As a Santa Clara County resident, this is troubling, but I understand why Intel made its decision. California has strict environmental regulations and very expensive land. As a result, it's almost always cheaper for companies to build fabs or other manufacturing operations outside of California. Although it's tough seeing a large, well-known employer offshore any work, I've heard over and over that the top brains and talent are still in the Bay Area.

It's surprising, however, that Intel seems to be offshoring such an IP-laden part of its business. The Bloomberg article doesn't specify whether a chip fab or a research fab is shutting down. In either case, if an overseas employee takes Intel's chip-level (not motherboard level) source code, or the manufacturing specs for Intel chips, it can sell them for millions of dollars to many interested buyers. That's one problem technology companies have when moving overseas to save costs--they may not be as familiar with local employees, cultural norms, or local court systems. America, despite its problems, still has a healthy respect for the rule of law--something that isn't universally shared.

Disclosure: I own Intel shares.

Interview with a Blue Dog

Here is an interview with "Blue Dog" Democrat Jim Cooper. What's a Blue Dog Dem? It's the perfect politician--fiscally conservative, socially liberal. Dems like Cooper are why I am still a registered Democrat.