The Export-Import Bank - page 2. | Bitcointalksearch.org

wasserman99

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Quote from: NewLiberty on September 03, 2014, 12:33:43 PM

Quote from: wasserman99 on August 29, 2014, 02:33:30 PM

It regulates how quickly the oversupply comes into the market. The exim bank is able to wait longer to sell the supply of a good so they can price the good appropriately. If a company is forced to sell their product to meet cash/liquidity needs then they would sell their goods at an unwarranted discount.

This sounds like a job for a company, not for a government entity.
Let Overstock do it. Or let them buy insurance.
If its not a viable business, then its not a viable business. Let the people do something productive instead.
Taxes ought not be taken by force of law from the widows and orphans to pay for the subsidy of business decision failures by protectionistas.
The markets price goods appropriately, not a government.

The guarantees that the ex-im bank provides are not free, it essentially acts as insurance. Many of the goods that are sold and guaranteed by the ex-im bank are not things that can be sold on overstock, and when they can be sold the quantity is much larger then what overstock is built for. For example if a foreign airline were to order 10 boeing airplanes and then file bankruptcy then boeing would be out of the cost to build the airplane but would have little to no way of selling it. The market for airplanes is not such that an airplane can be easily sold quickly.

NewLiberty

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Gresham's Lawyer

Quote from: wasserman99 on August 29, 2014, 02:33:30 PM

It regulates how quickly the oversupply comes into the market. The exim bank is able to wait longer to sell the supply of a good so they can price the good appropriately. If a company is forced to sell their product to meet cash/liquidity needs then they would sell their goods at an unwarranted discount.

This sounds like a job for a company, not for a government entity.
Let Overstock do it. Or let them buy insurance.
If its not a viable business, then its not a viable business. Let the people do something productive instead.
Taxes ought not be taken by force of law from the widows and orphans to pay for the subsidy of business decision failures by protectionistas.
The markets price goods appropriately, not a government.

wasserman99

sr. member

Activity: 476

Merit: 250

Quote from: NewLiberty on August 25, 2014, 12:01:09 AM

Quote from: itsAj on August 22, 2014, 11:11:11 PM

Quote from: zedicus on August 16, 2014, 07:20:18 PM

Quote from: NewLiberty on August 15, 2014, 04:56:37 AM

Quote from: zedicus on August 14, 2014, 09:36:34 PM

Quote from: NewLiberty on August 14, 2014, 03:00:19 PM

Quote from: Mobius on August 10, 2014, 04:53:25 PM

Quote from: Razick on August 06, 2014, 11:17:19 PM

Quote from: noviapriani on July 23, 2014, 01:15:39 PM

Should it stay or should it go? It is little more than thinly disguised corporate welfare.

It should go. Its just another market distorting corporate subsidy at taxpayer expense.

If it were to go wouldn't it put American companies (and the US economy) at a competitive disadvantage? Hint: the answer is yes because most other industrialized countries have similar subsidies. The result of shutting the ex-im bank would be that the US economy would grow less then it otherwise would and jobs would be relocated overseas that would otherwise be competitive in the US.

Just because other countries tax their people in order to sell things to us at under-market prices, we should that favor in return?
Is the goal is to move manufacturing into this country in those industries so that we can get the secrets of foreign production techniques?
Is there a special interest for subsidizing a particular industry at the expense of all the others for strategic reasons?

If we don't do this then our companies will be at an international disadvantage. if they are at a disadvantage like this then they would need to employ less people, which would shrink the tax base. if the tax base is less then in order to collect the same tax revenue overall tax rates will need to rise.

Doing it also puts "our" companies at an international disadvantage.
It marries them to the state, making them dependent on subsidy so fatter and lazier than needed. That it does so by killing off other companies that would have survived but for the marginal tax to support the favored few (minus the losses by running it through the bureaucracy) is a bit of economic self destruction.

Doing this sort of thing does accomplish something, it creates the new industry of government begging for the folks that lobby for these handouts. GDP measures that as a plus, but it oughtn't. It produces nothing.

What the ex-im bank does is reduce counter-party risk for American companies. If for example a foreign company wanted to buy $100 million dollars worth of light-bulbs from GE, then GE could use the ex-im bank to guarantee this payment while they are producing these light-bulbs. If GE's customer were to default then GE would still get paid and the light-bulbs would be given to the ex-im bank to sell or otherwise dispose of. In this situation, without the ex-im bank, GE would either need to take on more credit risk, produce a better light-bulb, charge less then the competition, or a combination of the three to be on a level playing field then it's competitors. If they did not then they would be at a disadvantage and would likely receive much fewer sales as a foreign company could buy the light-bulbs of a similar quality at a similar price on better terms from someone else. There is no way to use efficiency to solve this issue.

This hits it on the nail. All the export-import really does is guarantee sales for US companies to foreign firms. If the foreign firm were to fail and/or be unable to pay then the export-import bank would essentially buy the goods from the US company and attempt to sell them itself. This prevents potential oversupply of goods which is a major cause of recessions.

How is it preventing oversupply? It is just a re-seller of that supply, if it consumes nothing productively, it is just an intermediary middleman centralizing foreign counterparty risk at the expense of the national treasury? It merely adds waste to the economic system in which it operates.

It regulates how quickly the oversupply comes into the market. The exim bank is able to wait longer to sell the supply of a good so they can price the good appropriately. If a company is forced to sell their product to meet cash/liquidity needs then they would sell their goods at an unwarranted discount.

itsAj

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Quote from: NewLiberty on August 26, 2014, 02:11:47 PM

Quote from: itsAj on August 25, 2014, 10:12:30 PM

Quote from: NewLiberty on August 25, 2014, 12:01:09 AM

How is it preventing oversupply? It is just a re-seller of that supply, if it consumes nothing productively, it is just an intermediary middleman centralizing foreign counterparty risk at the expense of the national treasury? It merely adds waste to the economic system in which it operates.

The ex-im bank is able to release the supply at a slower pace then the original producer would be able to. The producer would have to pay it's employers and it's suppliers; if it's buyer is not able to pay then it would need to rush it's now unsold goods to the market in order for it to pay it's bills.

Then why (over)claim that it reduces supply when you clearly state it doesn't do anything more than put it on a shelf to rot and become obsolete, just like it would on the producer's shelf, and perhaps ultimately be sold? This is not reducing supply, only productive use does that. This is not a public good, it is the opposite, a public taking.
It is a politically controlled market distortion at public expense for private benefit, subject to lobbyist influence and plain corruption. Government ought not be in this business, it is wrong and a misuse of power.

I was in the "What is it?" / "I don't care" camp until all these ExIm apologists came along with these mealy-mouthed justifications. The more they write, the more reprehensible it seems. Should just stop and hope that folks don't see it for what it is. The more you explain, the worse it appears.

Not much patience for all this lipstick on a pig.

Having too much supply on the market at one time would mean that the price of the subject good permanently be lowered.

You also need to remember that the ex/im bank does not work for free. They do charge something in exchange for guaranteeing payment. Most of their opponents say they do not price risk appropriately but this is a separate argument.