Says it all:

Boehner-Reid Debt Plan

By Sen. Jim DeMint

July 26 — I have troubling news. I’m very careful about criticizing my party’s leaders, but what is happening in Washington right now cannot be ignored.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) has abandoned the Cut-Cap-Balance Act and is now pushing a new plan that is nearly identical to the one proposed by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV).

The Boehner-Reid plan gives the President an immediate increase in the debt limit and only promises to cut spending in the future. It violates all three principles of the Cut-Cap-Balance Pledge because it does not substantially cut current spending, it does not truly cap future spending, and it does not require the passage of a strong Balanced Budget Amendment before raising the debt limit.

In short, I oppose the Boehner-Reid plan because it won’t balance the budget and stop the debt that is destroying our country.

The Boehner-Reid Plan

You will hear many claims about this plan over the next few days as it is pushed through the House and Senate. Some of these claims will be true, but many will be false. Here are the facts. The Boehner-Reid plan:

Provides two increases in the debt limit — $900 billion and $1.6 trillion — totaling $2.5 trillion. It gives the President an immediate $900 billion increase given that Congress does not vote to disapprove it. It gives the President another $1.6 trillion increase next year if a bill written by a new Super Committee passes both houses and becomes law.

Reduces spending by only $1.2 trillion over the next ten years. This amount won’t even come close to balancing the budget, as the debt is expected to grow by as much as $10 trillion over the next decade. The plan also reduces spending by only $6 billion in 2012. Considering that our government currently spends $10 billion a day, $6 billion is far too little to cut over the first year of the plan.

Calls for a vote on the Balanced Budget Amendment but does not require its passage. Without passage of a strong Balanced Budget Amendment, Congress will never break its addiction to spending.

Makes it virtually impossible to stop the debt limit from going up. The debt ceiling increases can only be stopped if Congress passes a resolution of disapproval and then votes to override the President’s veto with two-thirds support in the House and Senate.

Creates a new, 12-member Super Committee to write another “grand bargain” to reduce the deficit by at least $1.6 trillion. It does not, however, prohibit the Super Committee from writing a bill to raise taxes and destroy jobs. The bill can then be fast-tracked through the House and Senate with no amendments.

Why It Should Be Rejected

After reviewing the details of Boehner-Reid plan, I cannot support it.

It won’t balance the budget and stop the debt. Even if the cuts called for in the plan were real, the debt will still increase by $7 trillion over the next ten years.

It won’t protect our AAA bond rating. According to financial reports, this plan will not reduce long-term spending by enough to prevent a downgrade. If we lose our AAA rating, it will create higher interest rates and cause our debt to grow even faster.

It will likely result in higher taxes that will destroy even more jobs. The unemployment rate is over 9 percent. We cannot afford to lose more jobs when so many Americans are struggling to find work.

There are some in my party who think I should ignore the flaws of the Boehner-Reid plan, bite my tongue, and support my party’s leaders. If I thought this were a political game, that might make sense. But the future of our country is at stake, I don’t believe this plan will save it, and I have a moral obligation to say so.

The Way Forward

Fortunately, there is a much better solution.

The Cut-Cap-Balance Act would balance the budget, stop the debt, and protect our AAA bond rating. This legislation passed the House with bipartisan support but was blocked by Democrats in the Senate.

The votes in the Senate for Cut-Cap-Balance are there if Republicans stand firm. 23 Democrats in the Senate have expressed support for the Balanced Budget Amendment at some point in their careers. They’re blocking it now because they believe Republicans will blink and agree to something much less.

And that’s exactly what will happen if the Boehner-Reid plan is passed. It gives the big spenders in Washington everything they wanted — an increase in the debt limit, phony spending cuts, and a mechanism to pass tax increases.

Please call your senators today and urge them to oppose the Boehner-Reid plan and to demand passage of the Cut, Cap, Balance Act.

Respectfully,

Jim DeMint
United States Senator
Chairman, Senate Conservatives Fund

In Defense of Holding the Line

By Erick Erickson

July 26 — I’m getting beat to hell and back by conservatives for insisting the GOP hold the line on Cut, Cap, and Balance. Even here at RedState, I’m getting accused of “ideological intransigence.” Yeah, here at RedState. There’s a first time for everything.

People want a deal. People want John Boehner’s deal. People are upset with me for not liking John Boehner’s deal. People are telling me, “They only have one house, Erick. You can’t expect them to not compromise. They control nothing.”

I’ve said all along I expect a deal and a compromise. Here’s the problem and I need you to understand this from perspective, whether you agree with me or not.

See, I worked to send people to Washington, DC to solve problems, to make things right, to fix the things that were broken, and to send power back to the states. They are not doing that.

We all saw Democrats go to Washington in 2008 and take the whole thing. They controlled everything and they made everything worse. They passed a stimulus bill that killed or ruined hundreds of thousands of jobs in the private sector while growing the government. They increased dependency on the federal government. And then they passed Obamacare and socialized American healthcare. But it doesn’t fully take effect until 2014. We saw Democrats willing to lose their positions to lurch the nation left.

So we sent to Washington an army of conservatives to Washington to defund Obamacare and stop the White House. And now they’ve gotten there and have refused to fight. They promised and put in writing that they’d cut $100 billion from the federal government budget in 2011 and they ultimately cut only $38 billion. The Congressional Budget Office, when it was done scoring it, said they really were only cutting about $500 million and it would cost more money that it was worth it to actually cut those dollars.

So they said, “But we”ll stand firm on the debt ceiling. We’ll hold the line.” Everybody gave them a pass and said, “Okay, hold the line on the debt ceiling.”

Now here we are the week before the deadline. John Boehner laments they should have done it sooner, but he refused to do it sooner. The Speaker has prevented the Republicans from submitting legislation to ensure we would not default so that he would have leverage over his own members to force them to take a deal. And now they are dealing.

What is their deal?

Their deal creates another committee to look at spending — the 18th in the past 30 years. These 18 committees have never done anything except raise taxes. Their spending cuts are put off a decade and future congresses ignore them.

Boehner’s spending caps are easily waived as they’ll be rules, not laws. And they punt.

A lot of you are emailing and getting on twitter saying to take the deal. Take the compromise. Why should we compromise? That’s what we always do. Even when in the majority we compromise. The Democrats didn’t compromise on healthcare. But you people want to compromise. Republicans, whether in the majority or minority, are always compromising in favor of bigger government and imaginary spending cuts.

To make matters worse, why the hell are the Republicans the ones coming up with the plans if they only control one house of one branch of the federal government? Why are they doing it? We’re on the third damn plan. They aren’t even compromising with the Democrats. They are compromising with themselves.

The Democrats are holding their line. The GOP is splitting conservatives. The Democrats are saying “Raise the debt ceiling. Don’t cut anything.” And Boehner is saying okay and putting in cuts that take affect in year eight of ten so none of them will be around to be held accountable. Why?

The GOP came up with Paul Ryan’s plan. They passed it. They took bullets. The GOP put him in a witness protection program and dropped it like a hot potato.

So then the GOP passed Cut, Cap, and Balance and the Democrats beat them up and again accused the GOP of killing grandma. The leadership was lukewarm to it and never fought for it. And immediately after voting for it, the leadership said, “Now, let’s move on to the third plan.”

Are these all just symbolic votes? If so, I’d rather some substance. This symbolism is getting the GOP killed with nothing to show for it.

Why the hell are we on our third plan when the Democrats haven’t even come up with one plan? They haven’t even passed a budget in over 800 days. We’re in this mess because Harry Reid, in December of 2010, refused the raise the debt ceiling so the GOP could own the problem. The GOP fell into the trap with eyes wide open.

And the Republicans are falling for it yet again.

And now I’m being accused of thinking this is all a game even by long time RedState readers. I do not think this is all a game.

I know the credit rating is going to be downgraded and I don’t want it to happen. You people who want the deal are so worked up in emotion that you are ignoring all the facts. Here are the facts:

1. S&P says we need a deal of at least $4 trillion in cuts to avoid a credit rating drop.

2. Neither Boehner nor Reid get us there.

3. The only plan that gets us there is Cut, Cap, and Balance and the GOP is running away from it as fast as they can. The GOP already passed it and it just four votes shy of a majority in the Senate.

No one wants to fight. “No, we’ve already had that vote. It can’t pass the Senate,” they say.

There will be no default on August 2nd. We know it will not happen. How do we know? Because we have more money coming in each month than is needed to pay principle and interest on our national debt. And we have had multiple prior occasions where we have gone passed the deadline and the world did not suddenly end. It is all political rhetoric. Shame on you for succumbing to fear.

Barack Obama does not want to be remembered as the President on whose watch the nation defaulted. His leverage goes away on August 3rd and the GOP holds all the cards. We won’t default. We can improve our negotiating position.

The GOP could hold the line. And because they won’t hold the line, they are tanking our credit behind a bunch of smoke and mirrors. If the Democrats blame the GOP when the credit rating drops, the GOP will damn well deserve the blame if they stick with Boehner’s plan.

They could at least fight to turn the tide. They could at least hold the line.

Somewhat misleading headline.

It reflects the odds of being able to deliver a specific treasury bond to the insurer at par.

Insurance cost?against US default hits record

By Michael Mackenzie and Nicole Bullock

May 25 (FT) —Insurance Cost Against US Default Hits Record
Published: Wednesday, 27 Jul 2011 | 10:14 PM ETText Size
By: Michael Mackenzie and Nicole Bullock in New York

The cost of buying insurance against a default by the U.S. rose to a record on Wednesday, in a sign of growing unease that gridlock in Washington over raising the federal debt ceiling may result in the Treasury failing to pay interest to bondholders.

In a CDS, a buyer of protection is compensated by the seller should there be a default or missed payment, known as a “credit event”. Premiums for one-year U.S. sovereign CDS rose sharply this week and traded at about 90 basis points in London on Wednesday, overtaking the previous high set in March 2009.

In the event of a U.S. credit event, the buyers of CDS would locate the February 2039 Treasury bond, currently priced at less than $88, and deliver that to the writers of insurance and receive $100 back, or par.

And if the US debt ceiling is not extended the drop in aggregate demand (spending) will take down most of the world economy:

Headlines:
Swiss Investor Sentiment Falls to Lowest in More Than 2 Years
Euro-Area Services, Manufacturing Gauge at Lowest Since 2009
Juncker Says Selective Default for Greece Is a Possibility
German output growth slowed sharply to its weakest in two years

and this:

China’s Manufacturing May Contract for First Time in a Year

July 21 (Bloomberg) — China’s manufacturing may contract for the first time in a year as output and new orders drop, preliminary data for a purchasing managers’ index indicated.

The gauge fell to 48.9 for July from a final reading of 50.1 for June, HSBC Holdings Plc and Markit Economics said in a statement today. The final July reading is due Aug. 1.

Today’s data adds to evidence that growth in the world’s second-largest economy is slowing on Premier Wen Jiabao’s campaign to tame consumer and property prices. The International Monetary Fund said in a report released late yesterday in Washington that risks for the economy include the threat of faster-than-expected inflation, a real-estate bubble, and bad loans from stimulus spending.

“The data are another sign that the monetary tightening measures that commenced last October are biting,” said Tim Condon, the Singapore-based head of Asia research at ING Groep NV. “If there is a concern that growth is slowing too much, past practice is that there will be a pause in the tightening.”

Stocks in China fell for a fourth day. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed 1 percent lower at 2,765.89, the biggest decline since July 12.

The yuan rose to a 17-year high after the central bank set the strongest reference rate since a dollar peg was scrapped exactly six years ago. It was 0.12 percent stronger at 6.4516 per dollar at 3:28 p.m. in Shanghai, the biggest advance in a week, according to the China Foreign Exchange Trade System.

Cost Pressure

Lu Ting, a Hong Kong-based economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, said the HSBC survey may be “more downward- biased” than an official PMI because the average size of the businesses covered is smaller. Such companies “are under increasing pressure” from labor costs and to secure capital, Lu said. He advised investors to “not overly respond” to the data.

The government has raised interest rates five times since mid-October, boosted lenders’ reserve requirements to a record level and imposed curbs on property investment and home purchases.

Inflation, which has breached the government’s 2011 target of 4 percent every month this year, accelerated to 6.4 percent in June from a year earlier, the highest level in three years.

The IMF said in the report that China’s economy “remains on a solid footing, propelled by vigorous domestic and external demand.” The Washington-based lender’s 24 directors also “generally agreed” that a stronger yuan would help rebalance the China’s economy toward domestic demand.

Slowing Demand

HSBC’s preliminary index, known as the Flash PMI, is based on 85 percent to 90 percent of responses to a survey of executives in more than 400 companies. Output in July contracted at a faster rate, export orders shrank at a slower pace and the gauge of new orders dropped below 50, the dividing line between expansion and contraction, today’s data showed.

Manufacturing in some industries is being hit by slowing demand. Li Ning Co., China’s largest sportswear maker and retailer, said July 7 its first-half sales dropped by about 5 percent. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers said July 8 that vehicle sales may increase about 5 percent this year, compared with an earlier estimate for 10 percent to 15 percent growth, due to lower demand for commercial autos.

The preliminary number has matched the final reading twice since HSBC began publishing the series in February. If it’s confirmed on Aug. 1, the index will have dropped to its lowest level since March 2009. It last fell below 50 in July 2010.

First, I’d guess the President will sign anything Congress passes, including short term measures.

But he might not.

And yes, there are options that allow the executive branch to continue to deficit spend if it wanted to, ranging from issuing a multi trillion dollar platinum coin to spending under cover of the 14th amendment.

However, there’s a real possibility Congress won’t pass anything for the President to sign, or that the President vetos what they do pass, and that the Treasury honora the current debt ceiling and limits spending to tax revenue.

Should that be the case, the US govt, as widely discussed, immediately goes to a ‘balanced budget’ mode, prioritizing interest payments, so there is no default by the US Treasury.

That means a lot of other bills won’t get paid.

Chairman Bernanke said that this could cut 6% off of GDP and send the US into a recession with GDP going from positive to negative.

However, falling GDP means falling revenues which means more spending cuts, and revenues falling further.

It also means the automatic fiscal stabilizers of rising transfer payments will not be funded by deficit spending and therefore not provide the support they have provided in all prior downturns.

In other words, for the first time the US would experience an unchecked downward spiral, which could make the downturn that much more severe than the Fed Chairman suggested.

And as difficult as it might be for the US, the euro member nations may be looking at something even more catastrophic.

The drop in US consumer, business, and govt spending will mean a drop in sales for euro zone exporters, possibly sending that region into negative GDP growth and falling govt revenues.

This means their current solvency and funding issues further deteriorate as the entire euro zone could experience a funding barrier and general default.

While the ECB can, operationally, write any size check required to fund the entire region, it doesn’t want to do that, and can be expected to wait until things deteriorate sufficiently to the point were there is no other choice.

Ironically, the US debt ceiling, a seemingly innocuous relic of the gold standard, where it once served to protect the nation’s gold supply and should have been eliminated when the US dollar ceased to be officially convertible into gold, could now bring down the entire world economy, and threaten the world social order as well.

Buying US Debt ‘Mind-Boggling’: Marc Faber

It’s just a reserve drain, Marcie, get over it!

The term structure of rates simply/largely anticipates future fed rate
settings.

The overall trade picture continues to appear to be ‘deteriorating’ and could be removing fundamental support for the euro.

Yes, German net exports remain firm, but it’s the euro zone as a whole that drives the value of the euro.

And higher prices for imported energy could be hurting the euro zone more than the US, as they import their natural gas as well and pay more for it.

France reports record trade gap in May

July 7 (Xinhua via COMTEX) — Sluggish exports and soaring costs of imported petroleum products drove higher France’s trade deficit to a record of 7.42 billion euros (10.61 billion U.S. dollars) in May, customs figures showed on Thursday.

For the past 12 months, the cumulated trade deficit widened to 63.41 billion euros in total compared to 51.55 billion euros in 2010.

“As in April, the trade deficit exceeded seven billion euros. It worsened due to double effects of surging imports, notably energy, and of sluggish exports …” French customs said in a statement.

The country’s total imports stood at 41.6 billion, up from 41.47 billion euros reported in April as purchases of refined products remained high and imports of natural hydrocarbons grew.

At the end of May, France reported a slight drop in its sales abroad to 34.17 billion euros on the back of lower sales of Airbus.

The giant aero group garnered 1.33 billion euros after selling 21 aircrafts versus 26 worth 1.7 billion euros in April, but during the week-long Paris Airshow in June, Airbus reported record orders for a total of 730 aircraft worth 72.2 billion U.S. dollars.

The recovery continues to more of an L shape than a V shape.

No signs yet of whether we stay in the current soft spot or move back to 4% growth as most forecast for Q3

(The same 4% forecasts for Q1 and Q2 were continually revised down closer to 2%)

Valance Chart Book

The hope is that the entire soft spot is a temporary consequence of the earthquake, and that China holds together, and that global austerity isn’t sufficient to slow overall growth:

Headlines:

Bank of England warns against quick fix to crisis (AP)
U.K. Services Drop Most Since January 2010 on Extra Holiday (Bloomberg)
U.K. Mortgage Approvals Increased Less Than Forecast in May (Bloomberg)
Bank of England Split on Interest Rate Policy as Consumers Struggle (Telegraph)
PBOC Adviser Sees China ‘Chronic’ Inflation Lasting Decade
Why China’s Heading for a Hard Landing, Part 3: A. Gary Shilling
Sweden: Slowdown After Strong Growth
Europe June Economic Confidence Drops to Lowest in 8 Months
Trichet Urges New Vision of Europe as Greeks Protest Austerity
Up to 15 EU banks to fail stress test
ECB’s Stark Rejects Brady-Bond Solution for Greece, Zeit Reports
French Greek Rollover Plan Depends on No Default Rating
French Output Grew Less Than Estimated on Consumer Spending
Growth of German retail sales maintained in June
French Jobless Claims Increase for First Time in Five Months
Spanish premier proposes new economic measures
Portugal plans tougher austerity measures
Spanish Existing Home Prices Decline 1.8% in Second Quarter
Mortgage Applications Dipped Last Week

RIP
USA
:(

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) today issued the following statement regarding House consideration of a balanced budget amendment, H.J. Res. 1, sponsored by Congressman Bob Goodlatte:

“We are being asked by the Obama Administration to approve a debt limit increase. While President Obama inherited a bad economy, his overspending and failure to enact pro-growth policies have made it worse and now our national debt is currently more than $14 trillion. House Republicans have made clear that we will not agree to raise the debt limit without real spending cuts and binding budget process reforms to ensure that we don’t continue to max out the credit card. One option to ensure that we begin to get our fiscal house in order is a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution, and I expect to schedule such a measure for the House to consider during the week of July 25th. I have no doubt that my Republican colleagues will overwhelmingly support this common sense measure and I urge Democrats to as well in order to get our fiscal house in order.”

‘So what will you do for us if we buy your bonds instead of US bonds’ said the spider to the fly, as China continues to play us all off against each other.

(And it seems they have gotten ‘assurances’ regarding default risk.)

China says willing to help economic growth in Europe

June 21 (Reuters) — China is willing to help European countries realise stable economic growth, China’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday ahead of a visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to Hungary, Britain and Germany this week.

“The Chinese government has already taken a series of proactive measures to push Sino-Europe trade and economic cooperation, such as buying euro bonds,” ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing when asked about China’s view of the Greek debt crisis.

“China is willing to continue helping European countries realise economic growth in a stable manner through cooperation with relevant countries,” he added, without elaborating.

Wen’s latest visit to Europe from June 24 to 28 will come months after he visited France, Portugal and Spain, and offered to help European economies overcome their debt-driven crises.

The debt crisis afflicting Greece and weighing on the euro is likely to overshadow his visit.

Markets will watch keenly for how Wen handles economic expectations this time, especially with Greece’s woes deepening. Last week, China’s central bank urged European governments to contain debt levels or risk worsening the region’s unfolding debt crisis.

China signalled in April that it could buy more debt from the euro zone’s weaker states. There are no precise figures, but China has said it has bought billions of euros of debt.

Since euro-zone debt worries first rippled through markets last year, China has repeatedly said that it has confidence in the single-currency region and pledged to buy debt issued by some of its troubled member states.

China’s interest in a smooth resolution to the European debt troubles has been clear. Of its $3 trillion or more in foreign exchange reserves, about a quarter are estimated to be invested in euro-denominated assets.

Juncker has to know better than this, he can’t be that sheltered?

From Mike Norman’s blog

“The debt level of the USA is disastrous,” Mr. Juncker said. “The real problem is that no one can explain well why the euro zone is in the epicenter of a global financial challenge at a moment, at which the fundamental indicators of the euro zone are substantially better than those of the U.S. or Japanese economy.”

Have we hit a soft spot?

Attached is a copy of a presentation that Warren delivered yesterday in Montreal.

We were extremely well received and Warren was a huge hit, mixing a concoction of high dose monetary economic realities with real life experiences and anecdotes from his long and lustrous career as a market wizard. The presentation was scheduled for 45 minutes but turned into 1hr20 minutes including Q&A.

Presentation link here.

>   
>   —– Original Message —–
>   From: Hadden, Glenn (FID)
>   Sent: Monday, April 18, 2011 04:45 PM
>   Subject: IMPORTANT – thoughts on S+P action re USA
>   

I would like to address the action taken today by S+P in revising the United
States credit outlook to negative.

Simply, I believe the argument behind S+P’s decision is flawed and displays
a misunderstanding of how the monetary system operates. My view is not
predicated on any political ideology. I am merely attempting to demonstrate
the incorrect logic regarding United States credit quality and solvency.

1. FINANCIAL BALANCE FRAMEWORK:
The first fundamental item that must be understood is how financial balances
relate to government indebtedness. In a closed economy (or an economy with a
perpetually balanced current account), government deficits must equal
private savings. If private savings desires increase, a government’s deficit
must increase by precisely the same amount all things equal. There is no
other way.

In the case of the United States, the budget deficit has grown to 10% of gdp
from approximately 4% of gdp because the savings rate has shifted from
approximately negative 2% to approximately positive 6%. Simply stated, the
federal budget isn’t a function of profligate government spending, its a
function of higher desired private savings causing a shortage of aggregate
demand. This shortage of aggregate demand is putting downward pressure on
tax revenues (lower nominal gdp implies lower tax revenues) and upward
pressures on expenditures owing to automatic stabilizers such as UI.

With this example, it is theoretically possible to have much larger
government deficit and debt levels if savings desires grow commensurately.
If private sector savings desires were to fall, which implies higher
aggregate demand (because the spending of a person in the private sector
simply creates another person’s income), the government deficit would fall
commensurately owing to higher tax revenues and possibly lower expenditures.

2. MYTHS REGARDING FOREIGN INVESTORS FUNDING THE UNITED STATES AND EXTERNAL LIABILITIES:
Firstly, the most important item to understand is the USA discharges its
debt in $US. So the entire argument of rating agencies behind ‘external
funding pressures’ is moot. Functionally there is no difference between a
holder of UST’s who is domiciled in USA or abroad, as they are both $US
dominated savers. The only difference is the foreign saver has no ‘need’ to
save in $US (where a USA investors needs $US as a means of exchange and to
pay his taxes).
So, what if foreign now dump their ust’s?
Foreign investors own ust’s and $us because they WANT to own them. By
engaging in fx driven trade policies, foreigners ‘pay up’ to get $US which
allows them greater sales into the USA market. If foreigners didn’t want to
save in $US, they would change their fx policy which would result in less
market share in USA economy. Foreigners can’t be both buyers and sellers
simultaneously. If foreigners wanted to own less $US, the result would be a
smaller current account deficit in USA, which again using a financial
balance framework would either result in more private savings, or a smaller
govt deficit. Bottom line – if foreigners want to have fewer savings in $US,
either private savers must increase savings, or the govt deficit must fall.

3. MYTHS REGARDING FOREIGN INVESTORS FUNDING THE UNITED STATES AND EXTERNAL LIABILITIES part II:
The same way banks offer savers demand deposits and term deposits (ie
chequing accounts versus savings accounts) the USA economy offers savers the
same in the form of $US (demand assets) or UST (term asset). Foreign savers
can therefore keep their $ at their Fed Reserve account and earn basically
zero (functionally a ‘chequing’ or demand account) or buy UST’s
(functionally a ‘savings’ or term account) and earn a coupon. There is no
other way to save in risk free space. As said above, foreigners who engage
in fx driven trade policies must accumulate $US demoninated assets. The only
choice they have is term vs demand assets. So indeed if foreigners declined
to own ust’s and alternatively kept their savings in $US at the Fed, the
result could be a higher and steeper term structure for USA rates. If the
Treasury decided to sell less ust’s and more tbills, this term structure
rise could be negated. Note foreigners actions are never about SOLVENCY, its
merely a function of liquidity preference.

4. THE DEFAULT BY THE SOVEREIGN OPERATING WITHIN A NON-CONVERTABLE EXCHANGE RATE REGIME IS A *FUNCTIONAL* IMPOSSIBILITY:
One must also understand the mechanics of government spending. A government
purchases goods and services from the private sector and then the Federal
Reserve credits the reserve accounts of the commercial banks whom the
sellers of such good and services bank. The Fed then debits the reserve
account of The US Treasury. The Treasury then sells ust’s, where the Fed
then credits the Treasury’s reserve account while debiting the reserve
accounts of the banking system.

So all that has happened is the government has created savings in the
economy by spending (from point 1 above: govt spending = private savings).
So as is illustrated, there is no issue of ‘solvency’ per se. The
government, by spending, is creating the savings to buy the ust’s. The only
issue here is the term gap. Specifically if savers only want demand assets
(ie $us), while the Treasury only wants to sell term assets (ie ust’s), the
resolution will be price and risk premium: ie how much interest rate spread
will a bank or arbitrageur need to intermediate this imbalance. This can all
be negated of course, if the Treasury only issued T-bills.

5. THE DEFAULT BY THE SOVEREIGN OPERATING WITHIN A NON-CONVERTABLE EXCHANGE RATE REGIME IS A *FUNCTIONAL* IMPOSSIBILITY part II:
This is the fundamental flaw of the S+P decision. The basis of their
sovereign rating criteria is as they describe it is: “The capacity and
willingness to pay its debts on time”. As mentioned above, there is
functionally no reason for the USA to ever not pay its debts – the USA’s
debts are and will always be equal to savings desires of the private and
foreign sectors. So ‘CAPACITY’ can never be an issue.

Hence the only reason the USA would ever default was because they ‘wanted’
to default, they never under any circumstance NEED to default so long as the
$US remains a non-convertable currency. The implications for a voluntary
default (again, this is the only kind of default possible by the USA) make
such a default an impossibility. The reason is because the 2nd largest
liability of the federal government is deposit insurance. If the USA decided
it wanted to default to escape its obligations, it would bankrupt its
banking system, who’s holdings of ust’s are greater than system-wide bank
capital of $1.4 Trillion. In fact the contingent liability put the
government has issue via deposit insurance is almost as large as USA debt
held by the public at $6.2 Trillion. So essentially a voluntary default
would actually INCREASE USA indebtedness by almost 100% while
simultaneouslybankrupting its banking system. So if ABILITY to pay is
assured, and a voluntary default actually raises indebtedness while
collapsing the banking system and economy, why would USA ever voluntarily
default? So S+P’s criteria of ‘WILLINGNESS’ to pay is also not applicable.

SUMMARY:
So as demonstrated, the bottom line is ABILITY to pay can never be an issue
in a non-convertable currency system. The only issue is WILLINGNESS to pay.
So if the argument by S+P relates to “the capacity and willingness to pay
its debts on time” as they described on Monday’s call, then their argument
simply isn’t cogent.

The last point I want to make is it would be incorrect to attempt to draw an
analogy to the placement of the UK on credit watch in mid May 2009 relating
to market performance. Yes indeed gilts sold off shortly after this
announcement. However this was more a function of the unhinging of the USA
MBS market. There existed a perception that the Fed via QE1 was attempting
to cap current coupon mortgage rates at 4%. Once this level was breached and
it became clear in mid/late May that this view was incorrect, a convexity
sell event hit the USA rates market which dragged all global bond yields
higher including Gilts.

To conclude – I view the decision today by S+P as having zero impact on
valuations of USA sovereign debt. We continue to engage in trades that
express the correct view that the solvency of the United States can never be
an issue in nominal terms; specifically we are buyers of 30yr assets swaps
at -25bps.

This is a good sign top line growth was continuing it’s modest growth in March.

Federal deficit spending continues to work to add the income and savings that allows consumers to both reduce their credit card debt and expand their consumption.

Deficit spending continues to be sufficient to support the modest GDP growth and employment growth we’ve been experiencing.

However, the risks remain as discussed at year end:

US deficit reduction efforts, with both sides agreeing that the deficit is THE problem, with some of the proposed cuts more than sufficient to trigger negative GDP growth and rising unemployment.

China’s fight against inflation leading to a hard landing.

UK and euro zone austerity measures passing the tipping point where further austerity measures slow growth sufficiently to increase national govt deficits.

Saudi crude oil price hikes both slowing world demand and triggering anti inflation responses that remove demand.

Additionally, world growth should slow by an unknown amount due to supply disruptions form the earthquake in Japan.

Consumers borrow more for student loans, new cars

April 7 (AP) — U.S. consumers borrowed more money in February to buy new cars and attend school, but they cut back on using their credit cards to make purchases. Borrowing increased by $7.6 billion, or 3.8 percent, in February. It was the fifth consecutive monthly gain. The category that includes car loans and student loans increased 7.7 percent. Borrowing in the category that covers credit cards fell 4.1 percent. That has risen only once in the more than two years since the 2008 financial crisis peaked. The gains pushed total borrowing up to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2.42 trillion in February. That’s 1 percent from the three-year low hit in September.

Charts that Say Demand Isn’t Doing Much of Anything

Yes, there’s modest top line growth, but not a lot of evidence anything more than that is likely to happen any time soon, especially with global post earthquake issues, US fiscal cutbacks of at least $31 billion as a ‘down payment’ next week, Japan showing no inclination to rebuild without ‘paying for it’, UK austerity kicking in for real this month, continued tightening in the euro zone, and China still fighting inflation with spending and lending cuts.

Q1 GDP now forecast with a 2 handle, and manufacturing, though sort of strong, is only about 11% of GDP and considerable slack remains.

Given the more than 2 years of positive headline GDP growth, gasoline demand, previously a pretty good coincident indicator, is looking pretty flat.

Saudi crude production has been increased to make up for lost Libyan output, and not due to an increase in world demand.

These series are doing ok, but no sign of accelerating demand. In fact the growth rates are less than they were when the output gap was a whole lot smaller in 06 and 07.

No sign of demand picking up here.

Consumer buying plans don’t look inspiring either, which makes sense with rising food and fuel prices.

With ‘normal’ credit conditions, govt deficits would be plenty high for us to be doing a lot better than this by now.

So given today’s credit conditions, seems to me govt deficits are far too small to see much progress on the demand side, and tightening fiscal at this point only makes that more so.

Today is year and in Japan,
which means the last few days could be mainly quarter end and year end maneuvers,
with a high probability of ‘buy the rumor sell the news’ types of unwinds coming up.

This would include the anticipation of another 200,000 new private sector jobs to be reported tomorrow am.
And the euro strength we’ve seen in front of the announced ECB rate hike next week.

There have been lots of promotional reasons to rush to get stocks on your books for year and/quarter end reporting,
as well as a bit of gold, silver, foods, and other commodities.

But fundamentally I see what’s going on below- a world heck bent on removing aggregate demand.

More noises from Japan on how they will pay for the rebuild, which looks to be a very modest appropriation tempered by fears of being at a fiscal tipping point.

UK austerity ratchets up April 1.

China still fighting inflation with further reduced spending and lending.

The euro zone demanding and getting austerity in return for funding, with signs in some members of austerity no longer bringing down deficits as revenues fall off from economic weakness. And no fiscal safety net if it does all go bad as markets have shown extreme reluctance to fund countercyclical deficits.

And food and fuel from monopoly pricing both eating into consumer demand and driving large segments of the world population into desperation.

Talk of Q1 US GDP down to maybe only +2%, housing still bumping along the bottom, and Q2 threatened by supply shortages due to the earthquake in Japan.

And the US debt ceiling showdown now possibly happing late next week as the deficit terrorists seal their congressional victory with the promised down payment on net spending cuts that won’t end there.

In fact, their army of support is now all but universal.

Everyone in DC and the mainstream media and economics profession agrees on the problem.

The only discussion is where the cuts should be, and who should pay more.

March 31, 2011
President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500
The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker of the House
1101 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
House Minority Leader
235 Cannon House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
The Honorable Harry Reid
Senate Majority Leader
522 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
The Honorable Mitch McConnell
Senate Minority Leader
361-A Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510

Dear President Obama, Speaker Boehner, Minority Leader Pelosi, Majority Leader Reid, and Minority Leader McConnell:


As you continue to work on our current budget situation, we are writing to let you know that we join with the 64 Senators who recently wrote that comprehensive deficit reduction measures are imperative, and to urge you to work together in support of a broad approach to solving the nation’s fiscal problems. As they said in their letter to President Obama:

“As you know, a bipartisan group of Senators has been working to craft a comprehensive deficit reduction package based upon the recommendations of the Fiscal Commission. While we may not agree with every aspect of the Commission’s recommendations, we believe that its work represents an important foundation to achieve meaningful progress on our debt. The Commission’s work also underscored the scope and breadth of our nation’s long-term fiscal challenges.

Beyond FY2011 funding decisions, we urge you to engage in a broader discussion about a comprehensive deficit reduction package. Specifically, we hope that the discussion will include discretionary spending cuts, entitlement changes and tax reform.

By approaching these negotiations comprehensively, with a strong signal of support from you, we believe that we can achieve consensus on these important fiscal issues. This would send a powerful message to Americans that Washington can work together to tackle this critical issue. Thank you for your attention to this matter.”

We agree with this letter and hope that you will work together to agree on a comprehensive, multi-year debt stabilization package.

Sincerely,
The Honorable Roger C. Altman
Former Assistant Secretary of the U.S.
Department of the Treasury; Founder
and Chairman, Evercore Partners

Barry Anderson
Former Acting Director, Congressional
Budget Office

Joseph Antos
Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Health Care
and Retirement Policy, American
Enterprise Institute

The Honorable Martin Baily
Former Chairman, Council of Economic
Advisers

Robert Bixby
Executive Director, Concord Coalition

Charles Blahous
Research Fellow, Hoover Institute

Erskine Bowles
Former Co-Chair, National Commission
on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

The Honorable Charles Bowsher
Former Comptroller General of the
United States

The Honorable John E. Chapoton
Former Assistant Secretary for Tax
Policy, U.S. Department of the Treasury

David Cote
Former Member, National Commission
on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform;
Chairman and CEO, Honeywell
International

Pete Davis
President, Davis Capital Investment
Ideas

John Endean
President, American Business
Conference

The Honorable Vic Fazio
Former Member of Congress

The Honorable Martin Feldstein
Former Chairman, Council of Economic
Advisers

The Honorable William Frenzel
Former Ranking Member, House
Budget Committee; Co-Chair,
Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget

Ann Fudge
Former Member, National Commission
on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform;
Former CEO, Young & Rubicam Brands

William G. Gale
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution William A. Galston
Senior Fellow and Ezra K. Zilkha Chair,
Brookings Institution

The Honorable Bill Gradison
Former Ranking Member, House
Budget Committee

The Honorable Judd Gregg
Former Chairman, Senate Budget
Committee

Ron Haskins
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Kevin Hassett
Senior Fellow and Director of Economic
Policy Studies, American Enterprise
Institute

G. William Hoagland
Former Staff Director, Senate Budget
Committee

The Honorable Glenn Hubbard
Former Chairman, Council of Economic
Advisers; Dean, Columbia Business
School

David B. Kendall
Senior Fellow for Health and Fiscal
Policy, Third Way

The Honorable Bob Kerrey
Former Member of Congress

Donald F. Kettl
Dean, School of Public Policy,
University of Maryland

The Honorable Charles E.M. Kolb
President, Committee for Economic
Development

The Honorable Jim Kolbe
Former Member of Congress

Lawrence B. Lindsey
President and CEO, The Lindsey Group;
Former Director, National Economic
Council

Maya MacGuineas
President, Committee for a Responsible
Federal Budget

The Honorable N. Gregory Mankiw
Former Chairman, Council of Economic
Advisers

The Honorable Donald Marron
Director, Urban-Brookings Tax Policy
Center; Former Acting Director,
Congressional Budget Office

William Marshall
President, Progressive Policy Institute

The Honorable James T. McIntyre, Jr.
Former Director, Office of Management
and Budget

Olivia S. Mitchell
Economist

The Honorable William A. Niskanen
Chairman Emeritus and Distinguished
Senior Economist, Cato Institute; Former
Acting Chairman, Council of Economic
Advisers

The Honorable Jim Nussle
Former Director, Office of Management
and Budget; Former Chairman, House
Budget Committee; Co-Chair,
Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget Michael E. O’Hanlon
Senior Fellow and Sydney Stein Jr.
Chair, Brookings Institution

The Honorable Paul O’Neill
Former Secretary of the U.S.
Department of the Treasury

Marne Obernauer, Jr.
Chairman, Beverage Distributors
Company

Rudolph G. Penner
Former Director, Congressional Budget
Office

The Honorable Timothy Penny
Former Member of Congress; Co-Chair,
Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget

The Honorable Alice Rivlin
Former Director, Congressional Budget
Office; Former Director, Office of
Management and Budget; Former
Member, National Commission on
Fiscal Responsibility and Reform

The Honorable Charles Robb
Former Member of Congress

Diane Lim Rogers
Chief Economist, Concord Coalition

The Honorable Christina Romer
Former Chairwoman, Council of
Economic Advisers

The Honorable Robert E. Rubin
Former Secretary of the U.S.
Department of the Treasury

The Honorable Martin Sabo
Former Chairman, House Budget
Committee

Isabel V. Sawhill
Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution

Allen Schick
Distinguished University Professor,
University of Maryland

Sylvester J. Schieber
Former Chairman, Social Security
Advisory Board

Daniel N. Shaviro
Wayne Perry Professor of Taxation,
New York University School of Law

The Honorable George P. Shultz
Former Secretary of the U.S.
Department of the Treasury; Former
Secretary of the U.S. Department of
State; Former Secretary of the U.S.
Department of Labor

The Honorable Alan K. Simpson
Former Member of Congress; Co-Chair,
National Commission on Fiscal
Responsibility and Reform

C. Eugene Steuerle
Institute Fellow and Richard B. Fisher
Chair, Urban Institute

The Honorable Charlie Stenholm
Former Member of Congress; Co-Chair,
Committee for a Responsible Federal
Budget The Honorable Phillip Swagel
Former Assistant Secretary for
Economic Policy, U.S. Department of the
Treasury

The Honorable John Tanner
Former Member of Congress

John B. Taylor
Mary and Robert Raymond Professor of
Economics, Stanford University; George
P. Shultz Senior Fellow in Economics,
Hoover Institution
The Honorable Laura D. Tyson
Former Chairwoman, Council of
Economic Advisers; Former Director,
National Economic Council
The Honorable George Voinovich
Former Member of Congress

The Honorable Paul Volcker
Former Chairman, Federal Reserve
System

Carol Cox Wait
Former President, Committee for a
Responsible Federal Budget

The Honorable David M. Walker
Former Comptroller General of the
United States


The Honorable Murray L.
Weidenbaum
Former Chairman, Council of Economic
Advisers

The Honorable Joseph R. Wright, Jr.
Former Director, Office of Management
and Budget
Mark Zandi
Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics

CAUTION: BE SEATED WHEN READING

COMMENTS BELOW:

It’s 2026, and the Debt Is Due

By N. Gregory Mankiw

March 26 (NYT)

The following is a presidential address to the nation — to be delivered in March 2026.

My fellow Americans, I come to you today with a heavy heart. We have a crisis on our hands. It is one of our own making. And it is one that leaves us with no good choices.

For many years, our nation’s government has lived beyond its means.

A rookie, first year student mistake. Our real means are everything we can produce at full employment domestically plus whatever the rest of the world wants to net send us. The currency is the means for achieving this. Dollars are purely nominal and not the real resources.

We have promised ourselves both low taxes and a generous social safety net. But we have not faced the hard reality of budget arithmetic.

The hard reality is that for a given size government, there is a ‘right level’ of taxes that corresponds with full domestic employment, with the size of any federal deficit a reflection of net world dollar savings desires.

The seeds of this crisis were planted long ago, by previous generations. Our parents and grandparents had noble aims. They saw poverty among the elderly and created Social Security.

Yes, they decided they would like our elderly to be able to enjoy at least a minimum level of consumption of goods and services that made us all proud to be Americans.

They saw sickness and created Medicare and Medicaid. They saw Americans struggle to afford health insurance and embracedhealth care reform with subsidies for middle-class families.

Yes, they elected to make sure everyone had at least a minimum level of actual health care services.

But this expansion in government did not come cheap. Government spending has taken up an increasing share of our national income.

The real cost of this ‘expansion’ (which was more of a reorganization than an expansion of actual real resources consumed by the elderly and consumed by actual healthcare needs) may have consumed an increasing share of real GDP, but with continued productivity this would have been at most a trivial amount at current rates of expansion.

Today, most of the large baby-boom generation is retired. They are no longer working and paying taxes, but they are eligible for the many government benefits we offer the elderly.

Yes, they are consuming real goods and services produced by others. The important consideration here is the % of the population working and overall productivity which he doesn’t even begin to address.

Our efforts to control health care costs have failed. We must now acknowledge that rising costs are driven largely by technological advances in saving lives. These advances are welcome, but they are expensive nonetheless.

Still no indication of what % of real GDP he envisions going to health care and real consumption by the elderly.

If we had chosen to tax ourselves to pay for this spending, our current problems could have been avoided. But no one likes paying taxes. Taxes not only take money out of our pockets, but they also distort incentives and reduce economic growth. So, instead, we borrowed increasing amounts to pay for these programs.

At least he gives real economic growth a passing mention. However, what he seems to continuously miss is that real output is THE issue. Right now, with potential employment perhaps 20% higher than it currently is, the lost real output, which compounds continuously, plus the real costs of unemployment- deterioration of human capital, broken families and communities, deterioration of real property, foregone investment, etc. etc. etc.- are far higher than the real resources consumed by the elderly and actual health care delivery. Nor does he understand what is meant by the term Federal borrowing- that it’s nothing more than the shift of dollar balances from reserve accounts at the Fed to securities accounts at the Fed. And that repayment is nothing more than shifting dollar balances from securities accounts at the Fed to reserve accounts at the Fed. No grandchildren involved!!!

Yet debt does not avoid hard choices. It only delays them. After last week’s events in the bond market, it is clear that further delay is no longer possible. The day of reckoning is here.

This morning, the Treasury Department released a detailed report about the nature of the problem. To put it most simply, the bond market no longer trusts us.

For years, the United States government borrowed on good terms. Investors both at home and abroad were confident that we would honor our debts. They were sure that when the time came, we would do the right thing and bring spending and taxes into line.

But over the last several years, as the ratio of our debt to gross domestic product reached ever-higher levels, investors started getting nervous. They demanded higher interest rates to compensate for the perceived risk.

This is all entirely inapplicable. It applies only to fixed exchange rate regimes, such as a gold standard, and not to non convertible currency/floating exchange rate regimes. This is nothing more than another rookie blunder.

Higher interest rates increased the cost of servicing our debt, adding to the upward pressure on spending. We found ourselves in a vicious circle of rising budget deficits and falling investor confidence.

With our non convertible dollar and a floating exchange rate, the Fed currently sets short term interest rates by voice vote, and the term structure of interest rates for the most part anticipates the Fed’s reaction function and future Fed votes. Nor is there any operational imperative for the US Government to offer longer term liabilities, such as 5 year, 7 year, 10 year, and 30 year US Treasury securities for sale, which serve to drive up long rates at levels higher than otherwise. That too is a practice left over from gold standard days that’s no longer applicable.

As economists often remind us, crises take longer to arrive than you think, but then they happen much faster than you could have imagined. Last week, when the Treasury tried to auction its most recent issue of government bonds, almost no one was buying. The private market will lend us no more. Our national credit card has been rejected.

As above, the US Government is under no operational imperative to issue Treasury securities. US Government spending is not, operationally, constrained by revenues. At the point of all US govt spending, all that happens is the Fed, which is controlled by Congress, credits a member bank reserve account on its own books. All US Government spending is simply a matter of data entry on the US Governments own books. Any restrictions on the US government’s ability to make timely payment of dollars are necessarily self imposed, and in no case external.

So where do we go from here?

WE DON’T GET ‘HERE’- THERE IS NO SUCH PLACE!!!

Yesterday, I returned from a meeting at the International Monetary Fund in its new headquarters in Beijing. I am pleased to report some good news. I have managed to secure from the I.M.F. a temporary line of credit to help us through this crisis.

This loan comes with some conditions. As your president, I have to be frank: I don’t like them, and neither will you. But, under the circumstances, accepting these conditions is our only choice.

Mankiw’s display of ignorance and absurdities continues to compound geometrically.

We have to cut Social Security immediately, especially for higher-income beneficiaries. Social Security will still keep the elderly out of poverty, but just barely.

We have to limit Medicare and Medicaid. These programs will still provide basic health care, but they will no longer cover many expensive treatments. Individuals will have to pay for these treatments on their own or, sadly, do without.

We have to cut health insurance subsidies to middle-income families. Health insurance will be less a right of citizenship and more a personal responsibility.

We have to eliminate inessential government functions, like subsidies for farming, ethanol production, public broadcasting, energy conservation and trade promotion.

The only reason we would ever be ‘forced’ to make those cuts would be real resource constraints- actual shortages of land, housing, food, drugs, labor, clothing, energy, etc. etc. And yes, that could indeed happen. Those are the real issues facing us. But Mankiw is so lost in his errant understanding of actual monetary operations he doesn’t even begin to get to where he should have started.

We will raise taxes on all but the poorest Americans. We will do this primarily by broadening the tax base, eliminating deductions for mortgage interest and state and local taxes. Employer-provided health insurance will hereafter be taxable compensation.

He fails to recognize that federal taxes function to regulate aggregate demand, and not to raise revenue per se, again showing a complete lack of understanding of current monetary arrangements.

We will increase the gasoline tax by $2 a gallon. This will not only increase revenue, but will also address various social ills, from global climate change to local traffic congestion.

Ok, finally, apart from the revenue error, he’s got the rest of it sort of right, except he left out the part about that tax being highly regressive.

As I have said, these changes are repellant to me. When you elected me, I promised to preserve the social safety net. I assured you that the budget deficit could be fixed by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse, and by increasing taxes on only the richest Americans. But now we have little choice in the matter.

Due entirely to ignorance of actual monetary operations.

If only we had faced up to this problem a generation ago. The choices then would not have been easy, but they would have been less draconian than the sudden, nonnegotiable demands we now face. Americans would have come to rely less on government and more on themselves, and so would be better prepared today.

What I wouldn’t give for a chance to go back and change the past. But what is done is done. Americans have faced hardship and adversity before, and we have triumphed. Working together, we can make the sacrifices it takes so our children and grandchildren will enjoy a more prosperous future.

N. Gregory Mankiw is a professor of economics at Harvard.

And no small part of the real problem we face as a nation!

Feel free to repost and distribute

Karim writes:

Market Color

Short~medium term JGB rallied due to additional monetary ease expectation related to unsterilized FX intervention money.

First, intervention in this direction- buying dollars- does ‘work’ and is infinitely sustainable.
It’s a political decision, much like the ECB buying national govt. debt. There is no nominal limit.

Second, the only reason they stopped was political pressure from the US, with the then Treasury secretary resorting to name calling like ‘currency manipulator’ and ‘outlaw.’ Otherwise the yen probably would not have been allowed to go under 100.

Third, their institutional structure functions to support the classic export led growth model- suppress domestic demand with consumption type taxes, relatively tight fiscal given institutionally driven savings desires, etc.

Fourth, this strategy causes the currency to strengthen and requires the govt. buy dollars to sustain desired levels of exports and employment.

Net exports necessarily equal net domestic holdings of foreign currency. Think of it this way. If Japan sells something to the US, and we pay for it in dollars, they have two choices. Either hold the dollars, in which case nothing more happens in the real economies and Japan has net exported and the US net imported. Or buy something in the US or any other nation with the dollars and import it to Japan in which case there are no net exports.

Japanese government started FX intervention last night with JY100bn in Tokyo and continued their effort in overseas and ended up with selling JY2trn in total. Many market participants are now saying that it will lead to monetary ease since BOJ will not absorb this JY2trn from the market and this is one of the main reasons for JGB rally today. However, I don’t think it will cause any such impact since government issues T-Bill for that amount (JY2trn) anyway.

When the BOJ buys dollars for the MOF, and pays for them with yen, that adds yen deposits to the domestic economy, thereby increasing the yen net financial assets held domestically. That’s an inflationary bias which is what they are trying to do.

In the first instance those newly added yen sit as yen balances in member accounts at the BOJ. And since they earn no interest the marginal cost of funds is 0, which happens to be where the BOJ wants it anyway.

‘Sterilizing’ is simply offering alternative interest bearing accounts such as JGB’s to the holders of the clearing balances. This would need to be done if the BOJ wanted higher rates. Or, the BOJ could simply pay interest on clearing balances if it wanted higher rates.

But the quantity of balances per se is of no ‘monetary’ consequence. As I like to say, for central banking it’s necessarily about price (interest rates) and not quantities.

So with rates already at 0, there is no more ‘monetary easing’ possible. The only ‘monetary easing’ the BOJ can do at this point is bring longer rates down some, but there isn’t much scope for that either. And they probably know by now lowering long term rates does nothing of major consequence for the real economy.

The question now is how far they will go. They’d probably like the yen back to north of 100 vs the dollar, and will move slowly to see how much political pressure they get from the US as they move in that direction. In fact, they may already be getting political pressure. I don’t know either way.

With political pressure building for China to adjust their currency upward as the US elections approach, this move by Japan might attract more attention than otherwise.

The irony/tragedy for the US is, of course, we should welcome all such moves, open ourselves for virtually unlimited imports from anywhere in the world (with sufficient quality control restrictions- no poison dog food, contaminated wall board, etc.), and enjoy the tax cut that comes along with it so we have sufficient purchasing power to be able to buy all of our own domestic output at full employment plus whatever the rest of the world wants to net export to us.

And apparently that’s a LOT right now. So with current policy of grossly overtaxing us for the size govt. we currently have, the losses of grossly over taxing ourselves may be north of 30% of US gdp, which is a staggering loss for us, and gone forever.

The only thing between what we have now and unimaginable prosperity remains the space between the ears of our policy makers, etc.

Please feel free to distribute, plagiarize, post anywhere, whatever!

*Rinban Result*

*upto 1yr to maturity (310bn)

Highest: +0.1bp
Average: +0.3bp
Allocation: 27.7%


* 1yr~10yr to maturity (250bn)

Highest: +1.5bp
Average: +2.1bp
Allocation: 19.0%