Category Archives: Politics

SEC Said to Vote 3-2 to Sue Goldman Sachs Over CDO

Posted on by

With this vote along party lines Dems will look very bad if they don’t win it.

>   
>   (email exchange)
>   
>   On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 2:37 PM, wrote:
>   
>   the vote was close but I’m not sure it changes much. However the political angle
>   in light of the Administration’s efforts at financial reform cannot be avoided.
>   Government leverage vs. bank leverage…
>   

SEC Said to Vote 3-2 to Sue Goldman Sachs Over CDO Disclosures

By Jesse Westbrook

April 19 (Bloomberg) — The U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission split 3-2 along party lines to approve an enforcement
case against Goldman Sachs Group Inc., according to two people
with knowledge of the vote.

SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro sided with Democrats Luis
Aguilar and Elisse Walter to approve the case, said the people,
who declined to be identified because the vote wasn’t public.
Republican commissioners Kathleen Casey and Troy Paredes voted
against suing, the person said.

The SEC on April 16 accused Goldman Sachs, the most
profitable company in Wall Street history, of creating and
selling collateralized debt obligations in 2007 tied to subprime
mortgages without disclosing that hedge fund Paulson & Co.
helped pick the underlying securities. Goldman Sachs also didn’t
disclose to investors that Paulson was betting against the
securities, the SEC said.

SEC spokesmen John Nester and Myron Marlin didn’t
immediately return a phone call and e-mail seeking comment.

Share

My alternative proposal on trade with China

Posted on by

We can have BOTH low priced imports AND good jobs for all Americans

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has urged US Treasury Secretary Geithner to take legal action to force China to let its currency appreciate. As stated by Blumenthal: “By stifling its currency, China is stifling our economy and stealing our jobs. Connecticut manufacturers have bled business and jobs over recent years because of China’s unconscionable currency manipulation and unfair market practices.”

The Attorney General is proposing to create jobs by lowering the value of the dollar vs. the yuan (China’s currency) to make China’s products a lot more expensive for US consumers, who are already struggling to survive. Those higher prices then cause us to instead buy products made elsewhere, which will presumably means more American products get produced and sold. The trade off is most likely to be a few more jobs in return for higher prices (also called inflation), and a lower standard of living from the higher prices.

Fortunately there is an alternative that allows the US consumer to enjoy the enormous benefits of low cost imports and also makes good jobs available for all Americans willing and able to work. That alternative is to keep Federal taxes low enough so Americans have enough take home pay to buy all the goods and services we can produce at full employment levels AND everything the world wants to sell to us. This in fact is exactly what happened in 2000 when unemployment was under 4%, while net imports were $380 billion. We had what most considered a ‘red hot’ labor market with jobs for all, as well as the benefit of consuming $380 billion more in imports than we exported, along with very low inflation and a high standard of living due in part to the low cost imports.

The reason we had such a good economy in 2000 was because private sector debt grew at a record 7% of GDP, supplying the spending power we needed to keep us fully employed and also able to buy all of those imports. But as soon as private sector debt expansion reached its limits and that source of spending power faded, the right Federal policy response would have been to cut Federal taxes to sustain American spending power. That wasn’t done until 2003- two long years after the recession had taken hold. The economy again improved, and unemployment came down even as imports increased. However, when private sector debt again collapsed in 2008, the Federal government again failed to cut taxes or increase spending to sustain the US consumer’s spending power. The stimulus package that was passed almost a year later in 2009 was far too small and spread out over too many years. Consequently, unemployment continued to rise, reaching an unthinkable high of 16.9% (people looking for full time work who can’t find it) in March 2010.

The problem is we are conducting Federal policy on the mistaken belief that the Federal government must get the dollars it spends through taxes, and what it doesn’t get from taxes it must borrow in the market place, and leave the debts for our children to pay back. It is this errant belief that has resulted in a policy of enormous, self imposed fiscal drag that has devastated our economy.

My three proposals for removing this drag on our economy are:

1. A full payroll tax (FICA) holiday for employees and employers. This increases the take home pay for people earning $50,000 a year by over $300 per month. It also cuts costs for businesses, which means lower prices as well as new investment.

2. A $500 per capita distribution to State governments with no strings attached. This means $1.75 billion of Federal revenue sharing to the State of Connecticut to help sustain essential public services and reduce debt.

3. An $8/hr national service job for anyone willing and able to work to facilitate the transition from unemployment to private sector employment as the pickup in sales from my first two proposals quickly translates into millions of new private sector jobs.

Because the right level of taxation to sustain full employment and price stability will vary over time, it’s the Federal government’s job to use taxation like a thermostat- lowering taxes when the economy is too cold, and considering tax increases only should the economy ‘over heat’ and get ‘too good’ (which is something I’ve never seen in my 40 years).

For policy makers to pursue this policy, they first need to understand what all insiders in the Fed (Federal Reserve Bank) have known for a very long time- the Federal government (not State and local government, corporations, and all of us) never actually has nor doesn’t have any US dollars. It taxes by simply changing numbers down in our bank accounts and doesn’t actually get anything, and it spends simply by changing numbers up in our bank accounts and doesn’t actually use anything up. As Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke explained in to Scott Pelley on ’60 minutes’ in May 2009:

(PELLEY) Is that tax money that the Fed is spending?
(BERNANKE) It’s not tax money. The banks have– accounts with the Fed, much the same way that you have an account in a commercial bank. So, to lend to a bank, we simply use the computer to mark up the size of the account that they have with the Fed.

Therefore, payroll tax cuts do NOT mean the Federal government will go broke and run out of money if it doesn’t cut Social Security and Medicare payments. As the Fed Chairman correctly explained, operationally, spending is not revenue constrained.

We know why the Federal government taxes- to regulate the economy- but what about Federal borrowing? As you might suspect, our well advertised dependence on foreigners to buy US Treasury securities to fund the Federal government is just another myth holding us back from realizing our economic potential.


Operationally, foreign governments have ‘checking accounts’ at the Fed called ‘reserve accounts,’ and US Treasury securities are nothing more than savings accounts at the same Fed. So when a nation like China sells things to us, we pay them with dollars that go into their checking account at the Fed. And when they buy US Treasury securities the Fed simply transfers their dollars from their Fed checking account to their Fed savings account. And paying back US Treasury securities is nothing more than transferring the balance in China’s savings account at the Fed to their checking account at the Fed. This is not a ‘burden’ for us nor will it be for our children and grand children. Nor is the US Treasury spending operationally constrained by whether China has their dollars in their checking account or their savings accounts. Any and all constraints on US government spending are necessarily self imposed. There can be no external constraints.


In conclusion, it is a failure to understand basic monetary operations and Fed reserve accounting that caused the Democratic Congress and Administration to cut Medicare in the latest health care law, and that same failure of understanding is now driving well intentioned Americans like Atty General Blumenthal to push China to revalue its currency. This weak dollar policy is a misguided effort to create jobs by causing import prices to go up for struggling US consumers to the point where we buy fewer Chinese products. The far better option is to cut taxes as I’ve proposed, to ensure we have enough take home pay to be able to buy all that we can produce domestically at full employment, plus whatever imports we want to buy from foreigners at the lowest possible prices, and return America to the economic prosperity we once enjoyed.

Share

Citibank saga draft

Posted on by

The Unspoken Macro of the Citibank Saga

I’m writing this because it’s how it is and I haven’t seen it written elsewhere.

Let’s assume, for simplicity of the math, Citibank pre crisis had $100 billion private capital, $900 billion in FDIC insured deposits, and $1trillion in loans (assets), which is a capital ratio of 10%. (The sub debt is part of capital. And notice this makes banks public/private partnerships, 10% private and 90% public. Ring a bell?)

This means once Citibank loses more than $100 billion, the FDIC has to write the check for any and all losses.
So if all the remaining loans go bad and become worthless, the FDIC writes the check for the entire $900 billion.

Then the crisis hits, and, again for simplicity of the math, lets assume Citibank has to realize $50 billion in losses. Now their private capital is down to only $50 billion from the original $100 billion.

This drops Citibank’s capital ratio to just over 5%, as they now have only $50 billion in private capital and 950 billion in loan value remaining as assets. So now if Citibank loses only $50 billion more the FDIC has to start writing checks, up to the same max of $900 billion.

But now Citibank’s capital ratio is below the prescribed legal limit. The FDIC needs a larger amount of private capital to give it a larger cushion against possible future losses before it has to write the check. So it’s supposed to declare Citibank insolvent, take it over, reorganize it, sell it, liquidate the pieces, etc. as it sees fit under current banking law. But the Congress and the administration don’t want that to happen, so Treasury Secretary Paulson comes up with a plan. The Treasury, under the proposed TARP program, will ‘inject’ $50 billion of capital in various forms, with punitive terms and conditions, into Citibank to restore its 10% capital ratio.

So Obama flies in, McCain flies in, they have the votes, they don’t have the votes, the Dow is moving hundreds of a points up and down with the possible vote, millions are losing their jobs as America heads for the sidelines to see if Congress can save the world. Finally the TARP passes, hundreds of billions of dollars are approved and added to the federal deficit, with everyone believing we are borrowing the funds from China for our grand children to pay back. And the Treasury bought $50 billion in Citibank stock, with punitive terms and conditions, to restore their capital ratio and save the world.

So then how does Citibank’s capital structure look? They still have the same $50 billion in capital which takes any additional losses first. Then, should additional losses exceed that $50 billion, the Treasury starts writing checks, instead of the FDIC. What’s the difference??? It’s all government, and the FDIC is legally backstopped by the treasury, and taxes banks to try to stay in the black. (riddle, what begins with g and is authorized to tax?)

Share

Posted on by

>   
>   On Mon, Mar 22, 2010 at 10:18 AM, wrote:
>   
>   Warren, don’t know if you saw this analysis from David Kelly.
>   

Thanks,

My current take is very similar:

Looks to me like this is about health care insurance and not health care per se.

Most all that seems to have happened is that government is now helping/funding up to 30 million more people to purchase private health insurance.

It’s a health care insurance bill, not a health care bill. It uses taxes and medicare cuts to ‘pay for’ private sector insurance company premiums.

So most of the funding goes to insurance companies, a portion of which will then be paid to providers and pharma.

The underlying health care system, with all it’s problems, remains largely unchanged.

It requires insurance companies to accept high risks, extend coverages, etc. and therefore raises costs for the insurance companies. This would raise premiums, however there are some controls on that, which would narrow margins.

This is a very odd mixture- using public funds to subsidize private sector insurance premiums.

After reviewing the timing of expenses and taxes and cuts I agree it doesn’t look like there’s much of an immediate macro issue. Maybe a very small negative bias upfront if some expenses go up.

The Investment Implications of Health Care Reform

By David Kelly

This morning, after almost a year of heated debate, the President has achieved his goal of a major reform to the health care system. Yesterday, the House voted to approve the 2409 page Senate Bill passed in December along with 153 pages worth of amendments, on the understanding that the Democratic majority in the Senate would accept these amendments without alteration. Presuming that Senate Democrats do not renege on their pledge, the combined bills will shortly become law.

So what does all of this mean for investors?

First, we need to recognize that in discussing this issue, like any other issue in investing, it is critical to leave politics and emotion to one side. People have very strong opinions on all sides of the health care debate – they are entitled to those opinions. These comments are solely focused on the investment implications of the combined bills.

So passing over the generally recognized positive of expanding coverage to roughly 30 million of the 50 million U.S. residents who don’t currently have insurance, what does it all mean for the economy and markets?

Taxes: The most obvious quantifiable impact of the bill is an increase in taxes for upper income Americans, particularly on investment income. Starting in 2013, the Medicare tax rate on households with income over $250,000 will be increased from 1.45% to 2.35%. In addition, a new 3.8% Medicare tax will be introduced for the same group on investment income.

Currently, the tax rate on dividends and long-term capital gains is 15%. In 2011, those rates are expected to rise to 20% for households earning over $250,000 and with the new Medicare tax, these rates will rise to 23.8% for the same group. Under current tax law, investors get to keep 85% of the income stream from taxable stock market investments. Under this new law this will be cut by 8.8% to 76.2%, reducing the value of the income stream by 10.4% (that is 8.8% of 85%). This is obviously a significant number. However, it is worth noting three things about this:

* First, roughly half of U.S. stocks are owned by households with income under $250,000 and roughly half are held in non-taxable accounts. Thus, using a number of broad assumptions, the value of the average stock should be reduced by one quarter of 10.4% or 2.6% – not good obviously, but also not an overwhelming reason to avoid stocks after 12 month period in which they rose by over 70% and still appear undervalued.

* Second, this bill does not put stocks at a further disadvantage relative to fixed income. The maximum federal tax rate on bonds and cash accounts is currently 35% and with tax changes coming in 2011 combined with these changes, that maximum rate will rise to 43.4% for households with income over $250,000 in 2013.

* And, third, it’s not like we haven’t been here before. On average over the past 40 years the maximum federal tax on capital gains was 24.7% and the maximum tax rate on dividends was 44.6%.

For the Medical Care Industry, this bill will expand demand without much effort to reign in costs. A combination of federal subsidies and mandates will increase the pool of insured, and while there many constraints preventing insurance companies from limiting coverage there are few which limit how much they can charge for it.

The pharmaceutical industry will benefit for this as well as a plan to remove the donut hole from the Medicare prescription drug benefit program by 2020. Early in the debate on health care, the White House negotiated deals with pharmaceutical, insurance and medical device companies to dissuade them from fighting the reform effort. Under these deals, they appear to retain autonomy on price setting. However, they will pay cumulative taxes of $107 billion between 2011 and 2019. To the extent that they are able to pass these costs on to consumers they may all do OK in this reform, although they may still be a target for future reform efforts.

The American Medical Association and American Hospital Association have both endorsed the health reform effort with a number of reservations. For the most part, the legislation does not interfere with patient-doctor relationships and, by expanding the pool of the insured, will reduce the number of hours which doctors are forced to devote to charity cases. Most doctors are naturally happy to see patients not lose their coverage due to pre-existing conditions clauses, annual caps or non-renewal of existing insurance due to illnesses.

For the Federal Deficit: According to the Congressional Budget Office, the passage of this legislation would reduce federal deficits by a cumulative $143 billion between 2010 and 2019 and by greater amounts in the following decade. However, these estimates should be taken with more than a grain of salt. It is obviously very hard to estimate what total federal health care spending will be over the next decade. However, whatever else is said about this bill there is nothing in it to suggest a reduction in either the quantity or prices of health care services consumed.

* There is no meaningful malpractice reform.
* There is no reduction in drug patent lives.
* There is no compulsion to force insurance companies to compete across state lines.
* There is no effort to limit health care procedures in the last year of life.
* There is no movement in the direction of forcing consumers to confront the cost of services at the point of purchase, and,
* There are no meaningful incentives to force the insured to take better care of their own health.

In fact, for the most part this bill moves away from, rather than towards, the principles of market economics. In 2007, the U.S. devoted 16% of its GDP to health care spending compared to 11% in the country with the second highest spending which was France. Despite this it ranks 38th in the world in life expectancy at birth. Sadly, this bill isn’t likely to change either of these numbers for the better.

For the economy: Despite dire predictions, it’s not clear that health care reform will really slow economic growth that much. Most of the tax provisions don’t kick in until 2013 and the mandates on businesses and individuals don’t kick in in a big way until 2016. Between now and then, the economy is quite capable of staging a full cyclical recovery. It may be that businesses will, in the end, be forced to pay more for the health care of their workers – however, overall, American business is quite capable of limiting wage increases to add to benefit costs. It may be that America as a society ends up spending more on health care. However, if we spend more on health care and less on housing or education or hamburgers, that is our choice. The jobs created in the health care field are American jobs and still some the highest skilled and best paid jobs out there. It should be noted, however, that to the extent that the government incurs more debt to pay for higher health care costs, it probably does mean higher long-term interest rates.

Finally, for politics: The passage of health care reform is a huge victory for the President and it may ultimately work out better for him politically than many Republicans had hoped or Democrats had feared. The economy is improving, and if it continues to do so, many may feel that their fears about health care reform were unfounded. The reality is more complicated. Health care reform wasn’t about to stop the economy in its tracks anyway and the President will be the beneficiary of a cyclical bounce-back which, on its face, appears to owe much more to pent-up demand than government stimulus. Either way the Democrats will lose seats in the mid-term election. However, the end-game for health care reform may well mean less of a swing to the Republicans in November than many had thought.

All in all, a lot to consider but also, more importantly, a lot to keep in proper perspective.

Share

Response to Dem debate

Posted on by

I arrived in Connecticut to begin a ‘listening tour’ before making the decision to run in the Democratic primary for United States Senate. Tonight I listened carefully to the Democratic candidates as they put forth their agendas for restoring the US economy and both fell far short of the mark. Neither had a credible economic agenda, and what they did propose- tax increases- would only make matters worse.

Making sure that people working for a living are paid enough to be able to buy the goods and services they produce has long been a core economic value of the Democratic party. And what drives the lion’s share of business, both large and small, is the competition to attract the consumer’s dollars by producing the goods and services working people want. Unfortunately, the current situation is clearly one where people working for a living are not taking home enough money to buy what business is desperately trying to sell. Consequently, business has been contracting and laying people off, which makes matters even worse.

The Republican response has traditionally been to give tax cuts and other monetary incentives to business rather than to the people doing the work. That does not result in new hires for the businesses, as business only hire when orders and sales pick up. Instead, it results in higher profits with the hope that those profiting will hire more domestic help and more gardeners, and produce a few jobs that way, which is known as trickle-down economics.

So while, in addition to tax hikes, both Democratic candidates for US Senate proposed tax relief, it was for small businesses- the traditional Republican approach, and indeed, the approach of the Obama administration. Note that last week’s jobs bill featured a $5,000 payroll tax reduction for businesses, and not for employees. In contrast, I have long been proposing a full ‘payroll tax holiday’ where a couple earning a combined $100,000 per year would see their take home pay rise by over $650 per month. That would be enough to fix the economy as people could then make their mortgage payments and car payments, and even do a little shopping. This is the Democratic approach which also gives businesses what they really need- people with enough money to spend to buy their products. It’s people with money to spend that creates the backlog of orders which then quickly results in the millions of new jobs we need to restore our economy to full employment levels and prosperity. The payroll tax holiday also reduces costs for business. In a competitive environment this translates into a combination of both lower prices and better cash flow for business that can be used for the new investment the recession has long delayed.

The reason the Democrats don’t propose this kind of tax cut is because they can’t answer the question of ‘how are you to replace the lost revenues.’ And, in fact the Obama administration has currently put Medicare and social security cuts on the table to ‘pay for’ what they’ve already spent. What both Democratic candidates are displaying is a failure to understand the difference between the function of Federal taxation and State and local government taxation. I grew up on the money desk at Banker’s Trust on Wall St. in the 1970’s, ran my own investment funds and securities dealer for 15 years, currently own a small Florida bank, and visit the Fed (Federal Reserve Bank) regularly to discuss monetary policy and monetary operations. I know how the payment system works, as does the Fed’s operations staff.

What we all know is that when Federal taxes are paid, all the Fed does is change the numbers down in our bank accounts. For example, if you have $5,000 in your bank account, and you pay a Federal tax of $1,000, all the Fed does is change the 5 on your bank statement to a 4, so you then have only $4,000 in your account. With online banking you can watch exactly that happen on your computer screen. The Fed doesn’t ‘get’ anything. It just changes the numbers in your account. And when the Federal government spends, it just changes numbers up in our bank accounts. It doesn’t ‘use up’ anything. In fact, the Federal government (unlike State and local governments and the rest of us who do need money in our accounts to be able to spend) never has nor doesn’t have dollars. Think if it as the score keeper for the dollar. When a touchdown is scored and 6 points go up on the scoreboard, does anyone ask where he stadium got those 6 points? Can the stadium run out of points to post on the score board? Of course not!

So why then does the Federal government tax, when it doesn’t get actual revenue (it just changes numbers down in our accounts) and it does not use up anything when it spends (it just changes numbers up in our accounts)? The fact is, taxes function to regulate the economy by controlling our take home pay. If taxes are too low, the result is excessive spending and the strong upward pressure on prices we call inflation. If we are over taxed, as we are today, and the Federal government is taking too much out of our paychecks, the result is a drop off in sales by businesses, and rising unemployment. Federal taxes are like the thermostat. If the economy is too hot (something I have never seen in my 37 years in the financial markets), they can be raised to cool it down. And when the economy goes ice cold, like it is now, my full payroll tax holiday is in order. The Federal government’s job is to keep the economy just right by keeping taxes low enough so people working for a living can afford to buy the goods and services they are capable of producing.

That’s what fiscal responsibility is all about. But until our politicians understand the difference between State finances and Federal finances, the will continue to fail to make sure our take home pay is high enough to sustain the high levels of output and employment that are the hallmarks of American prosperity.

Let me conclude with a word about China. It was stated in the Democratic debates and not disputed that the US was borrowing $4 billion from China to pay for the war in Afghanistan. However, close examination of monetary operations shows this is not at all as it seems. China has what amounts to a checking account at the Federal Reserve Bank. China gets its dollars by selling goods and services to the US, and those dollars are paid into that checking account at the Fed. And US Treasury securities are nothing more than fancy names for savings accounts at the Fed. So when China buys US Treasury securities, all the Fed does is shift China’s dollars from its checking account at the Fed to a savings account at the Fed. And when those Treasury securities become due and payable, all the Fed does is shift the dollars in the savings accounts (plus interest) back to China’s checking account at the Fed. That’s it. Debt paid. And it happens exactly this way every week as billions of Treasury securities are purchased and mature. And this process has no connection to Federal government spending for the war or anything else. Spending is always nothing more than the Fed changing numbers up in people’s bank accounts, no matter what China might be doing with their Fed accounts. That’s why the ‘national debt,’ which is nothing more than dollars in savings accounts at the Fed, has never created a financial problem, and never will, either for us or for our children. Yet the administration, the media, and the two Democratic candidates for US Senate from Connecticut have the story completely wrong as well, which results in proposals which are bad for Connecticut and bad for America.

America is grossly overtaxed and needs a full payroll tax holiday NOW to stop the bleeding and restore the American dream. The only thing standing in the way of economic prosperity is a lack of understanding of our monetary system.

Sincerely,
Warren Mosler

Share

Connecticut senate race

Posted on by

Another hat in the ring? Financial analyst Warren Mosler considers U.S. Senate run

By Daniela Altimari

Feb. 26 — Mosler, a Manchester native who holds an economics degree from UConn, is currently living in the U.S. Virgin Islands. But he intends to return to Connecticut tomorrow, to start a “listening tour” as he weighs a run for the seat currently held by Chris Dodd, who is retiring.

Mosler says he was planning to run for president in 2012 but has been prodded by people in Connecticut to enter the senate race. If he runs, he’ll do it as a Democrat — joining a field that already includes Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and Mystic businessman Merrick Alpert.

“It looks more than intriguing,” Mosler said. “If it makes sense, I’ll announce…I have a specific agenda for economic development I’m pushing.”

He says he’s motivated by his conscience, adding “I know I can turn the U.S. economy around in 90 days.”

Mosler’s agenda includes three main proposals: a full payroll tax holiday, a $500 per-capita distribution from the federal government to each state and a federal jobs program that would provide an $8-an-hour position to any unemployed person willing to work. (That’s the thumbnail version of his platform. More details can be found on his website.)

Mosler, 60, grew up in Manchester in the 1950s and ’60s and worked in Hartford before leaving for a job on Wall Street. He started his own hedge fund in 1982 and turned most of it over to partners in the late 1990s. He is currently on a government-sponsored project to promote economic development in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

According to his website, Mosler recently spoke to tea party activists in Dallas. That’s not normally a place you’d expect to find a Democratic office-seeker, but he says many of his views are in line with tea party values.

“I look at the tea party and I see a lot of concerned citizens who are unhappy, who believe the government has supported the elites,” he said. “They see their tax money going to AIG and the banks while they’re getting squeezed.”

If he runs, Mosler will pour some of his own money into his campaign but he won’t exclusively self-fund. He said he views campaign contributions as a measure of support. “Broad-based support is important,” he said. “I’m not talking to hear myself talk.”

Share

updates

Posted on by

Markets are getting closer to the idea that:

Interest rates don’t/won’t help
QE doesn’t/won’t help

With the larger point being coming to terms with the possibility the Fed can’t inflate, or do much of anything that actually matters for the real economy, except maybe fund zombie entities to keep them from failing.

So bonds are throwing in the inflation towel and yields are coming down.
The dollar is going up with miles to go before ppp is reached.
Gold is well off the highs and being held up probably by europeans running from the euro to dollars and a bit of gold.

(***Bernanke just again testified that a contango in futures prices is a reasonable forecast of higher prices down the road. So much for the credibility of their inflation forecast)

Meanwhile the eurozone is continuing it’s methodical implosion with no credible response in sight.
And the realization that all eurozone bank deposits are only insured by the national govts has yet to hit the headlines.

The Obama administration believes the US Treasury is ‘out of money’ and we have to borrow from China to spend and leave that for our children to pay back.
So any kind of meaningful US fiscal response seems off the table.

The American economy works best when people working for a living make enough to be able to one way or another buy their own output, and business competes for their dollars. It’s not happening.

We are grossly overtaxed for current circumstances with no meaningful relief in sight.

Lots of reasons to stay on the sidelines.

Share