Tag: Concord Coalition

–Nonsense from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

An alternative to popular faith

Demonstrating the bankruptcy of the typical debt-hawk position, here are excerpts from a long Email I just received from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a leading anti-debt advocate.

“The current fiscal path of the United States government is unsustainable. For the past forty years, our debt-to-GDP ratio has averaged around 40 percent. This year, it is projected to exceed 60 percent, the highest point since the early 1950s. […] By the end of the decade, debt is projected to be 90 percent of GDP, approaching our record high of around 110 percent after World War II. Things will deteriorate further as the Baby Boom retirement accelerates. Ten years later, the debt is expected to be well over 150 percent of GDP. By 2050, it is projected to be over 300 percent and still heading upward.” Though they claim the “fiscal path is unsustainable,” they project all the way to 2050. The lowest (since WWII) Debt/GDP ratio of about 35% came 70 years earlier, at 1979-1980, the end of the Carter administration, which also was the time of the highest inflation

 

Deficits vs inflation thru 09

[…]It is not at all clear how exactly such a crisis would unfold – what would prompt it or how it would play out. A crisis could occur as soon as this year, or decades from now. It could begin inside or outside the country. The crisis could be dramatic or gradual. It could come from an economic or another financial shock, or even a political surprise.” In short, “We don’t know when; we don’t know how; and we don’t know what. Otherwise, we’re sure.”

“Experts agree that we will be in a crisis when we can no longer service our debt obligations. However, we will probably never face this scenario.” This is the first time I ever have heard a debt hawk make this admission, which the author repeatedly forgets, later in the Email.

“There are a number of different crisis scenarios: Scenario 1: The Gradual Crisis – We stay the current course and try to muddle through. Our massive borrowing leads to less capital available for productive private investment, which lowers economic growth.“ Federal deficit spending adds money to the economy. There is no mechanism by which added money can reduce the supply of capital.

“Increasing debt service payments – particularly when interest rates return to normal – squeeze out other areas of the budget. The steady crowding out of government spending on programs that boost the economy, such as spending for education, infrastructure and innovation, will hurt our competitiveness.” This crowding out only can happen in a debt-hawk world, where deficits are restricted, either by tax increases or by reduced spending – a self-fulfilling prophecy.

“Scenario 2: The Political Risk Crisis – Political calculations trump risk threats. […] As a result, more budget resources are shifted from children to seniors, and from investment in programs boosting future growth. […] creditors lose confidence in U.S. fiscal management. Our creditors increasingly demand large risk premiums on purchases of their debt, sharply lower their purchases of our debt, or, in the worst case, stop buying our debt if the shift occurs suddenly. Credit ratings agencies lower our sovereign credit rating.” This neglects the simple fact that since the end of the gold standard, in 1971, the federal government no longer has needed to borrow its own money. Rather than borrowing by creating T-securities out of thin air, then selling them, the government can and should create money directly, and omit the borrowing step.

“Scenario 3: Catastrophic Budget Failure – An abrupt crisis occurs. […] at some point financial markets or foreign lenders decide we are no longer a good credit risk, possibly due to debt affordability concerns.” Debt affordability? Didn’t you just say,” Experts agree that we will be in a crisis when we can no longer service our debt obligations. However, we will probably never face this scenario.”

“[Creditors] stop buying our debt securities or demand dramatically higher interest rates due to increased perceived risk. […] In the extreme case, the U.S. may not be able to borrow at any interest rate.” Creditors concerned with hyperinflation or even default will not buy U.S. debt.” As we said, the U.S. no longer needs to sell debt. Issuance of Treasury securities could end today, and this would not change by even on penny, the government’s ability to spend.

“Scenario 4: Inflation Crisis – Higher debt is managed through inflation. […] Under strong political pressure, the Fed […] does not raise interest rates despite signs of increasing inflationary pressures. […] Fiscal consolidation will require spending cuts that will hurt safety net programs. Business investment incentives will disappear and tax rates will rise, as policymakers search for revenue. Household taxes rise and government services are reduced.” Wait. Isn’t that exactly what you are preaching – spending cuts and tax increases?

“Scenario 5: External Crisis -A dollar or trade crisis leads to a fiscal crisis. When the economy recovers in a few years, our current account deficit (which had narrowed during the recession) resumes widening to record levels. […] Capital inflows slow abruptly as investors see better risk-return opportunities elsewhere, decide the risks of the U.S. market are too high […] A sudden stop in lending lowers the dollar, increases inflation and interest rates[…]” A widening of the current account deficit means dollars leave the U.S., which if anything, would be anti inflationary.

“Scenario 6: Default Crisis – A series of events lead to a default.” Once again, you already have said the U.S. will not default.

“[…] Our need to pay higher interest rates increases debt service and crowds out public and private spending. […]” Higher interest rates increase the amount of money in the economy which facilitates private spending.

“[…}A new administration defaults or attempts to renegotiate our debts. Burned creditors stop buying U.S. debt or demand onerous interest premiums.[…]” Again, defaults? You’ve already discussed this impossibility.

“Countries that have sufficient domestic savings to finance their debt are less vulnerable than those that must attract considerable foreign capital – such as the United States. ” Totally false. The U.S. does not service its debt with savings. It creates money, ad hoc, to pay its debts.

“[…] Our large trade deficit outlook is considered unsustainable and a likely crisis flash point.”You already have admitted U.S. has the unlimited ability to service its debts. So what do you mean by “unsustainable”?.

“Some top economists argue that the U.S. can “afford” even more debt awhile longer because its debt service will still remain quite manageable. They also expect that the United States can avoid adjustment longer than fiscal policy norms might suggest because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency.” The debt service is manageable, not because the dollar is the world’s reserve currency, but rather because the government has the unlimited ability to pay its bills, and does not need to borrow.

“While certain countries are often cited to show that high sovereign debt ratios can be sustained without crisis (Italy, Belgium, Japan now), these countries – unlike the United States – can finance their debt through their substantial domestic savings.” Government debt is not financed through private savings. You and I do not pay federal debt with our savings.

“Many governments facing similar circumstances to the United States over the next generation have tried to avoid fiscal adjustment by running higher inflation to reduce their debt burden. Though appealing, this strategy hurts the economy and its citizens (particularly those on a fixed income).” There ever is a reason for a sovereign nation, in control of its money, to reduce its debt through inflation.

The entire premise of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget is that buyers of T-securities control the fate of the U.S., when in fact, the U.S., as the creator of dollars, no longer needs anyone to buy T-securities. This lack of understanding would be amusing were it not for the fact that the government acts on these beliefs.

One of the reasons we have been so slow to exit recession, is the government’s timid stimulus responses. The too little / too late, initial $150 per person mailing two years ago was restricted by debt fear. A $1,000-$2,000 per person mailing at that time, would have ended the recession.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

–Why a recession every 5 years?

An alternative to popular faith

In the past 100 years, why have we had 20 recessions or depressions, an average of one economic crisis every 5 years. I was thinking about this, when I received a response to one of my posts. The writer criticized a position by quoting Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson!

Economics is one of the few sciences where someone feels free to correct a hypothesis by quoting two-hundred-year-old statements from a politician. Imagine a physicist or a medical doctor being criticized on the basis of statements by Columbus.

Physics turned with the Relativity and Quantum theories. Medicine changed with the development of the microscope and the discovery of germs. Astronomy changed with the telescope and the realization the sun is just one of myriad stars. Economics has changed, too.

This science, and most of its hypotheses, were turned on their heads with the end of the gold standard. Just as Einstein gave us E = MC2, and told us space and time actually were spacetime, a single continuum, the end of the gold standard told us that debt and money were debt/money, a single entity, and gave us, Money = Debt.

Years ago, money was a physical substance, a barter substance. No debt involved. Later, money represented a physical substance. The merger of debt and money had begun, because the holder of money now was owed the physical substance.

With the end of the gold standard, money became pure debt, in short, debt/money. Yet the public, including the politicians and the media, and sadly even some economists, imagine 1971, the final end to the gold standard, never happened. What they believed before 1971, the greatest change in the history of economics, they still believe. It’s tantamount to basing all your unchanging astronomical theories on a flat world and the earth as center of the universe.

So in the minds of the public, the politicians and the media, debt and money still remain two separate entities. In their minds, the U.S. federal debt is too large, though “federal debt” merely is an accounting term meaning the net money created by the federal government. Those same people, if asked whether the U.S. has too much money, would say, “No,” but they feel the U.S. has too much debt!

In their minds, federal deficits are “unsustainable,” though the federal government now has the unlimited ability to create debt/money.

In their minds, the federal budget should be balanced, even while population growth, the trade deficit and inflation all conspire every day to reduce the per capita supply of real money. With a population annual growth of 1% and a modest 2% inflation, the per capita supply of real money in a balanced budget would fall 26% in only 10 years. Visualize each of us owning $10,000 today. By 2020, we each would own only $7,300 in real money. How could that support even zero economic growth? Add in the needs of growth itself, and the debt/money supply requirement grows further.

In their minds, the current debt should be erased by increased taxes and/or decreased spending, despite acknowledgment that increased taxes and/or decreased spending hurt people and hurt the economy.

In their minds, a federal profit (for instance, on interest coming from loans to industry) is good, despite federal profits being defacto taxes, debt/money coming from the private sector.

In their minds, the federal government is just like you and me, and must live by our rules of fiscal prudence. Yet the federal government is not like you and me, not even like state, county and local governments, not even like corporations. The federal government is unique, for it has the unique power and authority to create unlimited amounts of debt/money.

We first must acquire debt/money in order to spend. The federal government creates debt/money by spending, a wholly different process with wholly different rules.

As a science, economics has not grown from the philosophical beliefs of Everyman. Intuition dominates. It is less a science, than a religion based on personal experience, rumor, authority, faith and desire. Despite close study of endless data (Visualize religious scholars bending endlessly over their bibles), facts are ignored, discounted or twisted, while those who speak facts are ridiculed by the masses.

No politician would dare to say, “Federal debt growth is necessary, forever,” though that is true. The few academics with the courage to speak the truth are shouted down. The repeated failures of the government to prevent inflations, deflations, recessions, depressions and stagflations all are ascribed to normal, inevitable, unstoppable cycles, not to errors of belief and action.

And that is why we have had a recession every 5 years and will continue to do so.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

–Sabotaging health care

An alternative to popular faith

It has been a disgrace that the world’s leading, industrial nation, the proudest, most powerful nation in world history, has not provided health care for all its citizens.

Yes, I have voted more often for Republicans than for Democrats, because I felt they were better economists. But today I must give the Democrats credit for doing what is morally right, while taking the big political risk to start the ball rolling.

My Republicans, left to their own devices, would have done nothing. They never have been leaders for social improvements, whether Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare or human rights. While Republicans traditionally have been strong for business, they always have had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into anything that smacks of human benefits for the less fortunate.

That said, the health care plan is far from ideal. Way too many questions to be answered. Consider it only a start, a prototype; you can expect hundreds of changes. My only hope is that the nay-sayers will not try to gut the bill for political advantage.

The question is, and always has been, who will pay for it? I believe the federal government should, and there exists massive evidence on this blog and elsewhere, to prove the government can afford huge deficit increases that will stimulate the economy, and without inflation.

But what if, despite all the evidence, taxes are increased? Economically, a bad idea, no matter what taxes they are. But, which Americans are willing to say, “I’ve got mine and I’m not willing to help those less fortunate than me?” If that’s your attitude, you’re not really an American, although ironically, it seems those who boast loudest about their patriotism often are least likely to extend a hand.

Now we need to see how the program can be improved for the benefit of all. We’ve taken two hundred years to get this far, because that first step always is the hardest. My Republicans, by trying to do everything to sabotage the plan, are on the wrong side of history.

I say now is the time to work with the plan, not against it. Our best minds, cooperating toward on goal, can make the improvements that will protect Americans for decades.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com

–Health care: The tragic misunderstanding

An alternative to popular faith

On March 20, the Wall Street Journal’s editorial, “The ObamaCare Crosswords” said, “The Congressional Budget Office estimates ObamaCare will cost taxpayers $200 billion per year when fully implemented and grow annually at 8% . . . Soon the public will reach its taxing limit . . . medicine will be rationed by politics. . . “

On March 22nd, the Chicago Tribune editorialized, “The health care reform legislation would raise, not lower, federal deficits by $562 billion . . .(there is time) to craft a more sensible compromise that extends health care coverage to more people without breaking the bank.”

Which bank? Do you mean the federal government, which has increased its debt in the past 30 years an astounding 1,400%, from $800 billion to $12 trillion, yet never has had, and never will have, any difficulty whatsoever in servicing its debt? Or do you mean the taxpayers, already suffering, but whom debt hawks will require to send additional money to a federal government that neither uses nor needs the money?

The Tribune’s solution: “Our choice would require insurers to take all comers but give them a big new customer base: American who now don’t have health coverage but who don’t need an overhaul this expensive in order to get it.” And who are these Americans? They fall into two main categories: Lower income people who can’t afford health insurance and people who have pre-existing health problems.

To assist the former would require insurers to lower rates, thus increasing premiums for everyone else. To cover the later would require insurers to accept greater risk and provide greater payouts, thus again increasing premiums for everyone else.

The strange belief that a federal government, which repeatedly demonstrates it has the unlimited ability to create money without inflation, suddenly would have difficulty servicing additional debt, has caused otherwise intelligent people to lose their ability to reason. Though our government continuously has proved it can service a debt of any size, taxpayers are limited in what they can service. So, why do respected media editors prefer tax increases to federal debt increases, especially when increasing federal debt stimulates the economy?

Contrary to media demagoguery and popular faith, taxpayers do not pay for federal spending. When the government spends, it merely reaches out and credits the bank accounts of its creditors. There is no limit to the government’s ability to activate these credits, which are not in any way affected by tax receipts. If all federal taxes were eliminated today, the federal government’s future ability to spend would not change by even one penny.

The confusion comes because the federal government is unlike you, me, companies and state, county and local governments. We all must obtain money to spend money, and we are limited in our ability to obtain money. By contrast, the federal government creates money out of thin air, with no limits. Taxpayers are not involved in the process.

Astute politicians are aware of the disconnect between taxes and spending, which is why Vice President Cheney, in an unguarded moment, famously said, “Deficits don’t matter.” But politicians, knowing the public believes taxes pay for spending, and not wanting to appear imprudent, go along with the myth.

We could have a health care program in which doctors, nurses and hospitals are well paid, pharmaceutical companies are incented to create new drugs, and all Americans receive optimum health care. Instead, wrong-headed budget concerns have taken precedence over human health concerns, leaving us with a crazy-quilt, inadequate health care bill.

The current plan is to take money from Medicare, from doctors, nurses and hospitals, from employers and from those who currently pay for health insurance. What a terrible, unnecessary human tragedy we have created, all because of ignorance about federal budgets.

Rodger Malcolm Mitchell
http://www.rodgermitchell.com