The DOT will begin to auction off landing slots at airports…well at LaGuardia, Newark and JFK anyway…and "up to 10%" of the slots…and with "mounting opposition."  I did say this was a little good news didn’t I?   

Tyler and I have both suggested that increased immigration would help to increase the demand for housing and relieve some of the financial crisis.  Writing in the WSJ Lee Ohanian concurs:

We should encourage the immigration of prime-age individuals. Beginning in 2007, net immigration fell to half of its level over the previous five years. Increasing immigration would increase the demand for housing and raise home prices. And note that the benefit would be immediate. Home prices — and the value of subprime obligations — would rise in anticipation of a higher population base. The U.S. particularly needs highly skilled workers. These workers not only would purchase homes, but would generate higher living standards for all Americans.

More generally, Ohanian warns that what made the Great Depression great was the misguided policies that Hoover and Roosevelt adopted to fight the depression.  Ohanian has an ill-considered swipe at Obama on this score but the general point is valid and worth remembering as we rush onwards. 

Today the Fed starts to pay interest on reserves.  The zero interest on required reserves was an opportunity cost to banks, a tax if you like, so paying interest lifts the tax.  Reducing taxes on banks at the present time makes sense and in the long run there are some efficiency gains from paying interest on required reserves, especially to the extent that the previous system could be gamed.  Overall, however, this is small potatoes.

More interesting is why the Fed. will pay interest on excess reserves.  In the long run, there are again efficiency gains but why would the Fed. want to make it more profitable for banks to hold excess reserves now when we want every dollar in the credit markets?  My best guess is that the Fed. wants to play more Operation Twist and in Brad DeLong’s terms this gives them an additional tool to do it on the Pan-Galactic scale.  In short, they will buy long bonds and commercial paper or other such asset and use the interest payments on excess reserves to sterilize.  Although paying interest on excess reserves brings this whole operation under the Fed house it’s unclear to me, however, how the situation is markedly different than with Fed/Treasury cooperation.

The consensus among economists is now clear, the best strategy for dealing with the financial crisis is to recapitalize the banks that need recapitalization.  Paul Krugman, John Cochrane, Luigi Zingales, Douglas Diamond, Raghuram Rajan and many others all advocate some form of recapitalization as do Tyler Cowen and myself.  Krugman would prefer a recapitalization in the form of nationalization.  In my view, there is still plenty of private money to buy banks at the right price and my preferred model is the FDIC leading a speed bankruptcy procedure, as was done brilliantly with Washington Mutual (Cochrane also supports this model.)  In the middle are most of the others who have a variety of good ideas to require the banks to raise equity in various ways. 

The consensus policy of economists would put most of the burden of adjustment on politically powerful holders of equity and bonds.

There is also a consensus among economists that the bailout bill is not the right policy.  None of the above economists, for example, is enthusiastic about the bailout.  My bet is that all of us think that the bailout has a substantial likelihood of failing.  The support that exists is born out of hope and fear not judgment and experience.  Nevertheless, the political consensus is that a bailout is what we will get whether it is likely to work or not.   

Addendum: Lynne Kiesling draws the Olsonian conclusion.

A famous paper in economics showed how cigarettes became a medium of exchange in a POW camp (even leading to booms and slumps depending on Red Cross deliveries).  For a long time cigarettes were the money of choice in American prisons as well but today, according to a great piece in the WSJ, the preferred medium of exchange is mackerel.

There’s been a mackerel economy in federal prisons since about 2004,
former inmates and some prison consultants say. That’s when federal
prisons prohibited smoking and, by default, the cigarette pack, which
was the earlier gold standard.

Prisoners need a proxy for the dollar because they’re not allowed to
possess cash. Money they get from prison jobs (which pay a maximum of
40 cents an hour, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons) or family
members goes into commissary accounts that let them buy things such as
food and toiletries. After the smokes disappeared, inmates turned to
other items on the commissary menu to use as currency…in much of the federal prison system mackerel has become the currency of choice.

I loved this point which raised the possibility of significant mack seignorage.

…Mr. Muntz says he sold more than $1 million of mackerel for federal
prison commissaries last year. It accounted for about half his
commissary sales, he says, outstripping the canned tuna, crab, chicken
and oysters he offers.

Unlike those more expensive delicacies, former prisoners say, the
mack is a good stand-in for the greenback because each can (or pouch)
costs about $1 and few — other than weight-lifters craving protein —
want to eat it.

Thanks to Brandon Fuller for the link.

R: "I’m quite pessimistic about the current financial system.  I’ve been buying gold."

A: "Gold?  That’s not pessimistic enough.  I’ve been buying rice."

Or so say Larry Summers and Mark Thoma who argue that we can have a bailout and a stimulus package and still have tax cuts and more spending on energy, health care, education and all the other goodies that we have been promised.  Salesman Summers explains:

Just as a family that goes on a $500,000 vacation is $500,000 poorer
but a family that buys a $500,000 home is only poorer if it overpays,
the impact of the $700bn programme on the fiscal position depends on
how it is deployed and how the economy performs. The American
experience with financial support programmes is somewhat encouraging.
The Chrysler bail-out, President Bill Clinton’s emergency loans to
Mexico, and the Depression-era support programmes for housing and
financial sectors all ultimately made profits for taxpayers…

Does this sound familiar?  I can hear it now.  A vacation sir is consumption but a home, ah a home, that’s investment.  Investments pay off.  Just look at the American experience.  Rising home prices!  Never a downturn.  Isn’t that encouraging?  Hell, at prices like these you can hardly afford not to buy.  Yes sir, a home that’s a wise investment.  And that makes you sir, a wise investor.  And a wise investor, well a wise investor can certainly afford a nice vacation.