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Shortcuts: The Importance of Setting Expectations, Whether High or Low

MY father recently had his second knee operation in a year. The first time, things went poorly. His rehabilitation was difficult and months later, he still could not walk well or, even more important to him, play tennis.

He had the operation a few weeks ago, and he’s already doing much better. Different doctor, different outcome. And perhaps, most significantly, different expectations.

“The first surgeon just raised my expectations unrealistically,” my father said. “He told me that in a few weeks I would be out on the tennis court.”

Knowing what to expect colors so much of our life’s experiences, often more so than the experience itself. If we expect to pay $21,000 for a car, $20,000 seems like a deal. If we expect to pay $19,000, it seems like highway robbery. Either way, the car is still $20,000.

I started thinking about how we manage expectations after my father’s operation and after a friend, Amy, told me she recently had her cancerous thyroid removed. The cancer was contained, but one of her vocal cords was paralyzed.

She wasn’t warned about this, but has since learned it is a common side effect of such an operation and can last up to a year. It makes talking, eating and drinking difficult.

“It’s not what I bargained for,” Amy said. “I’m grateful to be alive, but if I had just known, I would have been more prepared before and afterwards.”

While both the examples I’ve offered happen to be medical, how we manage expectations applies to everything, from dating to job searches to what presents we’re going to get for our birthdays.

“It’s so central to our lives,” said David Rock, author of “Your Brain at Work” (HarperCollins, 2009).

There are two sides of expectations — what we expect from others and what we expect from ourselves. And how we manage those expectations is critical to how we view our experiences and pursue our goals.

Mr. Rock, who is also director of the NeuroLeadership Institute, which aims to improve leadership through applying the latest research on the brain, says there is a physiological reason we are disappointed when life does not meet our expectations. The neurotransmitter dopamine is released in our brain — and makes us feel good — when something positive happens.

Take an event as mundane as crossing the street. We push the button and expect the light to change in maybe 30 seconds. If it takes five seconds, “there’s a pleasant release of dopamine, and a general feeling of well-being,” he said, even if it’s only fleeting.

The downside is that when our expectations are not met — let’s say it takes a minute for the light to change — our negative feelings are much stronger than the good feelings we get when expectations are exceeded.

Which is a real shame. As Mr. Rock explains it, “If we expect to get x and we get x, there’s a slight rise in dopamine. If we expect to get x and we get 2x, there’s a greater rise. But if we expect to get x and get 0.9x, then we get a much bigger drop.”

“When we don’t hit our expectations,” he added, “our brain doesn’t just get slightly unhappy, it sends out a message of danger or threat.” That suggests that the cliché “hope for the best but expect the worst” has a lot of truth.

But not always. “The takeaway message,” Mr. Rock said, “is to be adaptive.”

Understanding what is in your control and what is not is crucial in managing expectations. As a job hunter, say, you may know it is tough to find a position in these economic times, and you cannot do anything about that. You can have unreasonable expectations at two extremes: an expectation of being hired quickly or an assumption that you will never work again.

Tags: Expectations, Importance, Setting, Shortcuts, Whether

Strong Debt Sale in Italy Does Little to Lift Spirits

On Friday, the Italian Treasury sold a total of about 4.8 billion euros ($6.1 billion) of debt, including 3 billion euros of three-year bonds priced to yield 4.83 percent, down sharply from the 5.62 percent it paid at the last auction of such securities in late December. But the bid-to-cover ratio for the three-year bonds, a measure of demand, was lukewarm at 1.2 times — below the 1.36 times at the last sale.

A day earlier, Spain sold 10 billion euros of bonds, twice the targeted amount, with yields falling about a full percentage point from previous auctions.

The European Central Bank began a new financing program last month to backstop banks, helping to restore a semblance of stability to the euro zone financial system and to hold down the rates that governments must pay to sell debt.

Yields rise as the price of the underlying bonds falls, so the fact that yields are lower suggests that investors have more confidence in the debtor’s ability to repay its borrowing.

But another confidence gauge — the gap, or spread, between Italian and German 10-year bonds — barely budged. Rome’s long-term borrowing costs are still more than three times higher than Berlin’s.

“The tone was broadly better in the wake of the Spanish auction and a run-up in the euro,” said Charles Diebel, head of market strategy at Lloyds Banking in London. But an unexplained delay in the announcement of the Italian results, he said, as well as the continuing uncertainty over the Greek debt restructuring talks, “took the shine off things.”

Mr. Diebel said Europe’s interbank lending market, where banks finance themselves on a short-term basis, remained “broken,” even after the E.C.B. began the longer-term refinancing operations. In December, the central bank lent 489.2 billion euros ($625 billion) for three years at its benchmark 1 percent interest rate.

“Unsecured lending between banks is just not happening,” he said.

That observation is backed up by European Central Bank data released Friday that showed that banks had deposited a record 489.9 billion euros overnight, almost the same amount lent under the three-year program. The figure has been elevated since the loans were made.

Separately, talks between Greece and private sector creditors over a restructuring of the country’s crushing debt were suspended Friday amid a continuing disagreement over how much of a loss banks and investors should take on their holdings.

While people involved in the negotiations described it as a more of a negotiating tactic than a sign that Greece was going to default, the disagreement was a reminder of how wide the gap remains between the two sides, even after months of discussions.

At issue, bankers and government officials say, is less the actual 50 percent write-down, or haircut, that investors would absorb with their new bonds than the coupon, or interest, these new instruments would carry.

Investors are pushing for a higher interest payout to mitigate their loss and the fact that their exposure to Greece will be lengthened considerably with the new bonds.

The International Monetary Fund and Germany, both of which have become increasingly worried about Greece’s ability to service its debts as its economy continues to plummet, are pushing for a lower rate that would ease Greece’s debt payments and require investors to take a bigger loss on their holdings.

Europe and the I.M.F. have said repeatedly that without a private sector deal, Greece will not get the 30 billion euros in bailout funds that it needs to avoid bankruptcy.

The negotiations have been complicated by the increased influence of a bloc of investors, largely hedge funds, who have bought billions of euros of discounted Greek debt and have said they will not participate in a restructuring. They are betting that Europe will blink and give Greece its money, and because the deal will be voluntary, the holdouts will get their payday.

With the breakup of the talks and the increased threat of a default, these investors may well choose to participate in the deal — in the hopes of getting something as opposed to the very little they would get if Greece went bankrupt.

A bank that borrows from the European Central Bank at 1 percent and then parks the funds with the central bank gets just 0.25 percent in interest, which means that institutions are losing money on their deposits.

The E.C.B.’s extension of huge amounts of funds “is about trying to provide the banking sector with liquidity, support the bond market and buy time” for European leaders to find a lasting solution, Mr. Diebel said. “It’s not a fix.”

Still, he said, by the time the next round of the E.C.B. refinancing operations goes through, in late February, “banks will have a lot of liquidity.”

If the more dire possibilities can be avoided until then, he added, “putting some of that liquidity into the bond market will be a lot more attractive.”

The cost of financing Spanish and Italian debt has been in the spotlight since last year, when contagion from the euro crisis that led Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek bailouts began to spread.

Though Italy’s government deficit is actually much smaller than that of many other countries, including Britain and the United States, its public debt, a legacy of past spending and slow growth, is seen as dangerously high.

Landon Thomas Jr. reported from London and David Jolly from Paris.

Tags: Italy, Little, Spirits, Strong

Economix Blog: Laura D’Andrea Tyson: Some Good Economic News, but Will It Last?

Laura D’Andrea Tyson is a professor at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and served as chairwoman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton.

In recent weeks, a series of encouraging reports on the United States economy, culminating in the December employment report, has provided tantalizing evidence that the recovery is strengthening. But it’s too early to celebrate.

Perspectives from expert contributors.

Both 2010 and 2011 started with good economic news and forecasts of a strong growth rebound but proved to be disappointing. Despite recent signs of strength, most forecasts for 2012 predict that growth will fall short of 2.5 percent, the rate required to absorb anticipated increments to the labor force, and that’s assuming Congress extends the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits through the year.

Right now, it looks as though the United States economy will continue to recover at a moderate pace in 2012. But there are considerable downside risks that could cause growth to falter.

The central problem remains inadequate aggregate demand – both at home and around the world. The shortfall in demand is reflected in unutilized resources, notably unemployed and underemployed workers and idle plant and machinery.

The level of output in the United States is now higher than it was in the fourth quarter of 2007 but still far below the level that could be produced if existing resources were fully utilized. A recent Treasury estimate puts the gap between actual and potential output at more than 7 percent – or more than $1 trillion of goods and services.

The output gaps are even larger in many European economies, some of which never regained their 2007 output levels and have fallen into another recession that is now spreading throughout Europe.

In the United States, high levels of unemployment, weak wage gains and a steep decline in home values continue to constrain consumption, which accounts for about 70 percent of aggregate demand. Real disposable personal income actually decreased in the second and third quarters of 2011 and was essentially unchanged for the year.

The uptick in consumer spending in the last months of 2011 was offset by a worrying drop in the household saving rate, which fell to 3.5 percent, down from an average of 5.3 percent in 2010 and less than half its long-term historical average of 8 percent.

A sustained increase in household saving is necessary to make a significant and permanent dent in household debt, which still hovers at near-record levels relative to household incomes.

But instead of saving more, households borrowed more at the end of 2011, and consumer debt registered its largest increase in percentage terms since October 2001. This trend is neither healthy nor sustainable.

The December employment report showed promising signs of growth in labor incomes fueled by an increase in hours worked and an increase in hourly wages. With hours and wages both up, average weekly earnings rose at an annual rate of 3.1 percent in the last three months of 2011.

But with an unemployment rate of 8.5 percent, a labor-force participation rate of only 64 percent and 6.6 million fewer jobs than in December 2007, aggregate labor income has fallen to a historic low of 44 percent of national income. And labor income is the most important component of household income, which, in turn, is the major driver of consumer spending.

Labor’s share of national income tends to rise in recessions as companies hold on to workers, but the 2008 recession was different; companies shed workers at a terrifying pace and labor income plummeted. At the current pace of job creation, the labor share of income is not likely to recover its pre-recession level for a long time.

According to the Hamilton Project, the United States still has a “jobs gap” of 12.1 million jobs, and even with monthly job growth at the December 2011 rate of 200,000 jobs a month, the gap will not close until 2024.

Corporate profits are at an historic high as a share of national income, and business investment in plants and equipment has been strong, fueled in large measure by robust demand in emerging economies. But growth in these economies is also poised to slow in 2012 as recession in Europe and lower commodity prices eat into their exports.

In addition, emerging economies face tighter credit conditions, as European banks scale back their cross-border loans and build their capital, and as global investors reduce their risk exposure in response to the sovereign debt crisis gripping the euro zone.

With weaker consumption growth at home, the United States must rebalance future growth toward more exports. President Obama has set an achievable goal of doubling American exports over five years.

But recession in Europe and a slowdown in emerging economies will dampen American export markets in 2012. If concerns over the European debt crisis lead to a stronger dollar, as seems likely, that too will make the rebalancing and export goals more elusive.

And with a worldwide shortage of aggregate demand, there will be a strong temptation for countries to adopt zero-sum protectionist policies in 2012 to keep demand at home and to block access to their markets.

Barriers to market access are already a source of trade friction between the United States and China, which is the second-largest American export market. President Obama just announced an interagency task force to monitor “unfair” trading and business practices by China, and the United States is already investigating or pursuing market-access complaints against China on a variety of products in the World Trade Organization.

Given the large and persistent jobs deficit and the considerable risks to a sustained recovery in 2012, additional fiscal measures to increase aggregate demand are warranted – but Tea-Party obstructionism and election-year politics make them highly unlikely.

President Obama proposed a $450 billion package of such measures in October, but the package died in Congress despite compelling evidence that it would have supported about two million jobs over two years.

At this point, it is not even certain that the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits will be extended through the rest of this year. What is certain is that we will hear a lot about job creation from Republican Congressional and presidential candidates but will see little action by a Congress mired in gridlock.

The danger in 2012 is not too much fiscal stimulus, but too much fiscal austerity. The same danger is stalking Europe and could lead to a sovereign default by a euro-zone country and the breakup of the euro.

Such an event, considered unthinkable just a few months ago but viewed as a real risk now, would plunge Europe and the United States into recession, with negative reverberations throughout the global economy.

For all of these reasons, 2012 is likely to be another difficult and disappointing year for the United States economy. The recent news has been promising but it’s too early to bring out the Champagne.

Tags: DAndrea, Economic, Economix, Laura, Tyson

In France, the Pain of Rating Downgrade Is Especially Acute

An S.& P. downgrade provides no truly new information about the euro zone’s debt struggle, now entering its third year. But the move at least symbolically places the crisis squarely on the doorstep of the Continent’s second-biggest economy after Germany — which retains the AAA credit rating of which France can no longer boast.

Keeping that top credit rating had long been a badge of honor for France — and a political point of pride for President Nicolas Sarkozy, who now enters a difficult re-election campaign with a stigma that his opponents quickly moved to exploit.

News of the downgrade blared from French airwaves and on Web sites, as the finance minister, François Baroin, declared that the event was “not a catastrophe.” Members of the opposing Socialist party wasted no time painting a gloomier picture. “He’s the president of the degradation of France,” Martine Aubry, the party’s secretary, said of the French president.

Mr. Sarkozy had often boasted of France’s gilt-edged standing, and the looming prospect of its loss had recently become a prime topic of political discussion, a hot issue on talk shows and fodder for comedians and political cartoonists.

But whether the S.& P. downgrade will have a marked effect on France’s cost of borrowing money is something only the coming months and weeks will tell.

Because the demotion had been widely anticipated, French officials have said the impact will be manageable. French debt, and that of most other euro zone governments, was already trading as if a downgrade had happened. Yields on French 10-year government bonds, which rose slightly Friday and stood at 3 percent, have been trading more than a percentage point above Germany’s, the European benchmark. Germany’s interest rate fell slightly to 1.8 percent Friday.

“It isn’t the end of the world” for France, said Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. “There will be a lot of terrible headlines,” he said in an interview before the official announcement of an S.& P. downgrade, “but it’s not going to cause French bonds to decline a lot on a persistent basis.”

S.& P. kept a negative outlook for France, citing its high government debt, and a rigid labor market that has helped keep the unemployment rate high, at around 9 percent. The agency said it could downgrade France yet again this year or next if efforts at budget consolidation strategy and structural reforms faltered.

The downgrade will raise the nation’s borrowing costs at a time when it is trying to reduce around 1.7 trillion euros of debt.

In Paris, for example, a sparkling light show that illuminated the Eiffel Tower for 10 minutes every hour after dark has been cut to 5 minutes. Cities and municipalities will feel a similar pinch. Some have already begun adjusting to tighter financial constraints.

France is one of the major financial backers of the European rescue fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, which is meant to prevent the credit contagion that began in Greece from spreading to large countries like Italy and Spain.

The price of its rescue fund, whose borrowing costs depend in part on the credit ratings of its contributing nations, will now probably rise because of the downgrades to France and others. Higher costs could make the fund less effective in stemming the euro crisis.

Many French leaders have noted that S.& P.’s downgrade of the United States’ AAA credit rating in August did not stop investors from flocking to Treasury securities. To a large extent, though, the United States has a special safe-haven status, as the world’s largest economy and as a financial power outside the euro zone, which France does not.

At the time S.& P. issued the American downgrade last summer, it had warned that France — of all the major economies that still held the highest credit grade — was the most vulnerable because its finances were being eroded by the European crisis. That warning came as the stocks of two of the country’s biggest banks — Société Générale and BNP Paribas — were being hammered by investors amid rising concern that they had been weakened by the crisis. The shares of both banks have continued to decline since then.

Tags: Acute, Downgrade, Especially, France, Rating