MMT to President Obama and Members of Congress:

Posted on July 17, 2011 @ 12:58 pm (Sunday) by WARREN MOSLER

Comments welcome, and feel free to repost:

MMT to President Obama and Members of Congress:
Deficit Reduction Takes Away Our Savings

SO PLEASE DON’T TAKE AWAY OUR SAVINGS!

Yes, it’s called the national debt, but US Treasury securities are nothing more than savings accounts at the Federal Reserve Bank.

The Federal debt IS the world’s dollars savings- to the penny!

The US deficit clock is also the world dollar savings clock- to the penny!

And therefore, deficit reduction takes away our savings.

SO PLEASE DON’T TAKE AWAY OUR SAVINGS!

Furthermore:

There is NO SUCH THING as a long term Federal deficit problem.

The US Government CAN’T run out of dollars.

US Government spending is NOT dependent on foreign lenders.

The US Government can’t EVER have a funding crisis like Greece-
there is no such thing for ANY issuer of its own currency.

US Government interest rates are under the control of our Federal Reserve Bank, and not market forces.

The risk of too much spending when we get to full employment
is higher prices, and NOT insolvency or a funding crisis.

Therefore, given our sky high unemployment, and depressed economy,

An informed Congress would be in heated debate over whether to increase federal spending, or decrease taxes.

Geithner- We’re going to try to get the biggest deal possible

Posted on July 10, 2011 @ 9:54 pm (Sunday) by WARREN MOSLER

Bill’s blog, below, as always, is well worth a read.

And note today’s news, where, of all things, the Democrats are trying to position themselves as larger deficit cutters than the Republicans:

“We’re going to try to get the biggest deal possible, a deal that’s best for the economy, not just in the short term,” Geithner said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

It is a pity that he doesn’t know the answer himself

By Bill Mitchell

We are deep into hard-disk crash trauma at CofFEE today with 2 volumes dying at the same time on Friday and a backup drive going down too. At least it was a sympathetic act on their behalf. Combine that with I lost a HDD on an iMAC after only 2 weeks since it was new a few weeks ago – after finally convincing myself that OS X was the way forward with virtual machines. Further another colleague’s back-up HDD crashed last week. It leaves one wondering what is going on. Backup is now a oft-spoken word around here today. But there is one thing I do know the answer to – Greg Mankiw’s latest Examination Question. It is a pity that he doesn’t know the answer himself. Further, it is a pity that one of the higher profiled “progressives” in the US buys into the same nonsense.

In his latest blog (July 3, 2011) – A Good Exam Question – Mankiw pokes fun at so-called progressive Dean Baker who wrote a column recently in The Republic (July 2, 2011) – Ron Paul’s Surprisingly Lucid Solution to the Debt Ceiling Impasse – where as the title suggests he thinks ultra-conservative US Republican politician Ron Paul is onto something good.

The truth is that none of them – Mankiw, Baker, or Paul – understand how the banking system operates.

First, let’s consider what Baker said in detail.

I think Mankiw’s summary of the Baker proposal is valid:

According to Congressman Paul, to deal with the debt-ceiling impasse, we should tell the Federal Reserve to destroy its vast holding of government bonds. Because the Fed might have planned on selling those bonds in open-market operations to drain the banking system of the currently high level of excess reserves, the Fed should (according to Baker) substantially increase reserve requirements.

Mankiw’s reaction is that “(t)his would be a great exam question: What are the effects of this policy? Who wins and who loses if this proposal is adopted?”.

I also agree that it would be an interesting examination question which I suspect all student who had studied macroeconomics using Mankiw’s own textbook would fail to answer correctly.

I will come back to Mankiw’s own answer directly – which suffers the same misgivings as the suggestion by Baker that we listen to Paul and then Baker’s own addendum to the idea.

Baker referred to Paul’s proposal as:

… a remarkably creative way to deal with the impasse over the debt ceiling: have the Federal Reserve Board destroy the $1.6 trillion in government bonds it now holds

He acknowledges that “at first blush this idea may seem crazy” but then claims it is “actually a very reasonable way to deal with the crisis. Furthermore, it provides a way to have lasting savings to the budget”.

So we have two ideas here – one to reduce debt as a way of tricking the pesky conservatives who want to close the US government down (or pretend they do for political purposes) by not approving the expansion of the “debt ceiling”. The debt ceiling is this archaic device that conservatives can use to make trouble for an elected government which has not operational validity. After all, doesn’t the US Congress approve the spending and taxation decisions of the US government anyway?

The second idea that Baker leaks into the debate is that by destroying public debt held by the central bank (as a result of their quantitative easing program) it would save them selling it back to the private sector which in turn would save the US government from paying interest on it. And he seems to think that is a good thing. Spare me!

In his own words:

The basic story is that the Fed has bought roughly $1.6 trillion in government bonds through its various quantitative easing programs over the last two and a half years. This money is part of the $14.3 trillion debt that is subject to the debt ceiling. However, the Fed is an agency of the government. Its assets are in fact assets of the government. Each year, the Fed refunds the interest earned on its assets in excess of the money needed to cover its operating expenses. Last year the Fed refunded almost $80 billion to the Treasury. In this sense, the bonds held by the Fed are literally money that the government owes to itself … As it stands now, the Fed plans to sell off its bond holdings over the next few years. This means that the interest paid on these bonds would go to banks, corporations, pension funds, and individual investors who purchase them from the Fed. In this case, the interest payments would be a burden to the Treasury since the Fed would no longer be collecting (and refunding) the interest.

First, note the recognition that the central bank and treasury are just components of the consolidated government sector – a basic premise of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) and should dispel the myth of the central bank being independent.

Mankiw also agreed with that saying “Since the Fed is really part of the government, the bonds it holds are liabilities the government owes to itself”. Which makes you wonder why he doesn’t tell his students that in his textbook. Further, why do those textbooks make out that the central bank is independent when it clearly is part of the monetary operations of the government? The answer is that it suits their ideological claim that monetary policy is superior to fiscal policy.

Please read my blogs – Central bank independence – another faux agenda and The consolidated government – treasury and central bank – for more discussion on this point.

I will come back to that status presently.

Second, the accounting hoopla by which the treasury gets interest income back from the central bank but lets it keep some funds to pay for its staff etc might be interesting to accountants but is largely meaningless from a monetary operations perspective. It is in the realm of the government lending itself money and paying itself back with some territory.

I agree with Mankiw that Paul’s suggestion which Baker endorses “is just an accounting gimmick”. But then the whole edifice surrounding government spending and bond-issuance is also “just an accounting gimmick”. The mainstream make much of what they call the government budget constraint as if it is an a priori financial constraint when in fact it is just an accounting statement of the monetary operations surrounding government spending and taxation and debt-issuance.

There are political gimmicks too that lead to the US government issuing debt to match their net public spending. These just hide the fact that in terms of the intrinsic characteristics of the monetary system the US government is never revenue constrained because it is the monopoly issuer of the currency. Which makes the whole debt ceiling debate a political and accounting gimmick.

Third, note that Baker then falls into the trap that the mainstream are captured by in thinking that in some way the interest payments made by the government to the non-government sector are a “burden”. A burden is something that carries opportunity costs and is unpleasant with connotations of restricted choices.

From a MMT perspective, one of the “costs” of the quantitative easing has been the lost private income that might have been forthcoming had the central bank left the government bonds in the private sector. Given how little else QE has achieved those costs make it a negative policy intervention.

So the so-called “burden” really falls on the private sector in the form of lost income. Once you accept that there are no financial constraints on the US government (which means that the opportunity costs are all real) then the concept of a burden as it is used by Baker is inapplicable.

And then once we recognise that there is a massive pool of underutilised labour and capital equipment in the US at present contributing nothing productive at all then one’s evaluation of those real opportunity costs should be low. That is, at full employment the interest payments made by government to the non-government sector on outstanding public debt have real resource implications that might require some offsetting policies (lower spending/higher taxation) to defray any inflation risks.

With an unemployment rate of nearly 10 per cent and persistently low capacity utilisation rates overall, every dollar the government can put into the US economy will be beneficial from a real perspective.

But it gets worse.

Baker turns his hand to thinking about the monetary operations involved in the central bank destroying the bonds. He might have saved us the pain. He notes that the reason the Federal Reserve “intends to sell off its bonds in future years” is because they want to:

… reduce the reserves of the banking system, thereby limiting lending and preventing inflation. If the Fed doesn’t have the bonds, however, then it can’t sell them off to soak up reserves.

But as it turns out, there are other mechanisms for restricting lending, most obviously raising the reserve requirements for banks. If banks are forced to keep a larger share of their deposits on reserve (rather than lend them out), it has the same effect as reducing the amount of reserves.

Baker falls head long into the mainstream myth that banks lend out reserves.

Please read the following blogs – Building bank reserves will not expand credit and Building bank reserves is not inflationary – for further discussion.

I remind you of this piece of analysis by the Bank of International Settlements in – Unconventional monetary policies: an appraisal – it is a very useful way to understanding the implications of the current build-up in bank reserves.

The BIS says:

… we argue that the typical strong emphasis on the role of the expansion of bank reserves in discussions of unconventional monetary policies is misplaced. In our view, the effectiveness of such policies is not much affected by the extent to which they rely on bank reserves as opposed to alternative close substitutes, such as central bank short-term debt. In particular, changes in reserves associated with unconventional monetary policies do not in and of themselves loosen significantly the constraint on bank lending or act as a catalyst for inflation …

In fact, the level of reserves hardly figures in banks’ lending decisions. The amount of credit outstanding is determined by banks’ willingness to supply loans, based on perceived risk-return trade-offs, and by the demand for those loans. The aggregate availability of bank reserves does not constrain the expansion directly.

It is obvious why this is the case. Loans create deposits which can then be drawn upon by the borrower. No reserves are needed at that stage. Then, as the BIS paper says, “in order to avoid extreme volatility in the interest rate, central banks supply reserves as demanded by the system.”

The loan desk of commercial banks have no interaction with the reserve operations of the monetary system as part of their daily tasks. They just take applications from credit worthy customers who seek loans and assess them accordingly and then approve or reject the loans. In approving a loan they instantly create a deposit (a zero net financial asset transaction).

The only thing that constrains the bank loan desks from expanding credit is a lack of credit-worthy applicants, which can originate from the supply side if banks adopt pessimistic assessments or the demand side if credit-worthy customers are loathe to seek loans.

In answering his own “examination question”, Mankiw gets positively angry and says of the plan to raise reserve requirements that it would be:

… a form of financial repression. Assuming the Fed does not pay market interest rates on those newly required reserves, it is like a tax on bank financing. The initial impact is on those small businesses that rely on banks to raise funds for investment. The policy will therefore impede the financial system’s ability to intermediate between savers and investors. As a result, the economy’s capital stock will be allocated less efficiently. In the long run, there will be lower growth in productivity and real wages.

First, if the central bank didn’t use the bonds to drain reserves (via open market operations) then it would have to pay market rates of interest to the banks who held reserves with them or lose control of its target policy rate. So unless the central bank is going to keep short-term rates at zero for an indefinite period (which I recommend) then we would be unwise to assume they will not be paying a return on the reserves (as they are doing now).

Consistent with MMT, there are two broad ways the central bank can manage bank reserves to maintain control over its target rate. First, central banks can buy or sell government debt to control the quantity of reserves to bring about the desired short-term interest rate.

MMT posits exactly the same explanation for public debt issuance – it is not to finance net government spending (outlays above tax revenue) given that the national government does not need to raise revenue in order to spend. Debt issuance is, in fact, a monetary operation to deal with the banks reserves that deficits add and allow central banks to maintain a target rate.

Try finding this explanation for public sector debt issuance in Mankiw’s macroeconomics text book.

Second, a central bank might, instead, provide a return on excess reserve holdings at the policy rate which means the financial opportunity cost of holding reserves for banks becomes zero. A central bank can then supply as many reserves as it likes at that support rate and the banks will be happy to hold them and not seek to rid themselves of the excess in the interbank market. The important point is that the interest rate level set by the central bank is then “delinked” from the volume of bank reserves in the banking system and so this becomes equivalent to the first case when the central bank drains reserves by issuing public debt.

So the build-up of bank reserves has no implication for interest rates which are clearly set solely by the central bank. All the mainstream claims that budget deficits will drive interest rates up misunderstand their impact on reserves and the central bank’s capacity to manage these bank reserves in a “decoupled” fashion.

Second, Mankiw falls prey to the same error that Baker makes – that banks lend out reserves. As noted this is a mainstream myth. The banks could still lend out whatever they liked as long as there were credit-worthy customers queuing up for loans. So no small businesses would be affected in the way Mankiw claims.

Anyway, as to what the debt-ceiling means, I was asked by several readers about the status of the US government (by which they meant the Treasury) in relation to the central bank (the Federal Reserve).

The legal code in the US essentially recognises that the central bank and treasury are part of the government sector.

If you consult the United States Code which reflects the legislative decisions made by the US Congress you find, for example, the section – TITLE 31 – MONEY AND FINANCE § 5301 – which deals with the Buying obligations of the United States Government

The US law stipulates the following:

31 USC § 5301. Buying obligations of the United States Government

(a) The President may direct the Secretary of the Treasury to make an agreement with the Federal reserve banks and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System when the President decides that the foreign commerce of the United States is affected adversely because –

(1) the value of coins and currency of a foreign country compared to the present standard value of gold is depreciating;

(2) action is necessary to regulate and maintain the parity of United States coins and currency;

(3) an economic emergency requires an expansion of credit; or

(4) an expansion of credit is necessary so that the United States Government and the governments of other countries can stabilize the value of coins and currencies of a country.

(b) Under an agreement under subsection (a) of this section, the Board shall permit the banks (and the Board is authorized to permit the banks notwithstanding another law) to agree that the banks will-

(1) conduct through each entire specified period open market operations in obligations of the United States Government or corporations in which the Government is the majority stockholder; and

(2) buy directly and hold an additional $3,000,000,000 of obligations of the Government for each agreed period, unless the Secretary consents to the sale of the obligations before the end of the period.

(c) With the approval of the Secretary, the Board may require Federal reserve banks to take action the Secretary and Board consider necessary to prevent unreasonable credit expansion.

§ 5301. Buying obligations of the United States Government under Title 31 of the US Code as currently published by the US Government reflects the laws passed by Congress as of February 1, 2010.

So it seems the President can never run out of “money”. Can any constitutional lawyers out there who are expert in the USC please clarify if there are exceptions to this law? The law (including the accompanying notes which I didn’t include here) appears to say that an economic emergency can justify the President commanding the Federal Reserve to hand over credit balances in favour of the US Treasury.

Conclusion

I hope you all answered Mankiw’s examination question correctly.

My attention is now turning to computer hardware!

That is enough for today!

Comment

Posted on June 26, 2011 @ 12:48 pm (Sunday) by WARREN MOSLER

Comment:

Side note: I called “on point” on NPR last week to challenge the guest viz his talk of US default, etc. The guy who manages the phone calls told me I don’t know anything about money, and that of course the debt crisis is just that and that the US could certainly default. He would not put my call on the air. The obstacles to getting the message out are everywhere.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke on Fiscal Sustainability

Posted on June 14, 2011 @ 6:39 pm (Tuesday) by WARREN MOSLER

This is from the same Ben S. Bernanke that stated the Fed spends by using their computer to mark up numbers in bank accounts.

Now, by extension, he’d propose basketball stadiums have a reserve of points for their scoreboards to make sure the teams could get their scores when they put the ball through the hoop.

If he was a state Governor this would be a pretty good speech. But he’s not.

Comments below:

Bernanke Speech

At the Annual Conference of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, Washington, D.C.
June 14, 2011
Fiscal Sustainability

I am pleased to speak to a group that has such a distinguished record of identifying crucial issues related to the federal budget and working toward bipartisan solutions to our nation’s fiscal problems.

Yes, we now have bipartisan support for deficit reduction. Good luck to us.

Today I will briefly discuss the fiscal challenges the nation faces and the importance of meeting those challenges for our collective economic future. I will then conclude with some thoughts on the way forward.

Fiscal Policy Challenges
At about 9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the federal budget deficit has widened appreciably since the onset of the recent recession in December 2007. The exceptional increase in the deficit has mostly reflected the automatic cyclical response of revenues and spending to a weak economy as well as the fiscal actions taken to ease the recession and aid the recovery. As the economy continues to expand and stimulus policies are phased out, the budget deficit should narrow over the next few years.

Both the Congressional Budget Office and the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget project that the budget deficit will be almost 5 percent of GDP in fiscal year 2015, assuming that current budget policies are extended and the economy is then close to full employment.1 Of even greater concern is that longer-run projections that extrapolate current policies and make plausible assumptions about the future evolution of the economy show the structural budget gap increasing significantly further over time. For example, under the alternative fiscal scenario developed by the Congressional Budget Office, which assumes most current policies are extended, the deficit is projected to be about 6-1/2 percent of GDP in 2020 and almost 13 percent of GDP in 2030. The ratio of outstanding federal debt to GDP, expected to be about 69 percent at the end of this fiscal year, would under that scenario rise to 87 percent in 2020 and 146 percent in 2030.2 One reason the debt is projected to increase so quickly is that the larger the debt outstanding, the greater the budgetary cost of making the required interest payments. This dynamic is clearly unsustainable.

Unfortunately, even after economic conditions have returned to normal, the nation faces a sizable structural budget gap.

The nation’s long-term fiscal imbalances did not emerge overnight. To a significant extent, they are the result of an aging population and fast-rising health-care costs, both of which have been predicted for decades. The Congressional Budget Office projects that net federal outlays for health-care entitlements–which were 5 percent of GDP in 2010–could rise to more than 8 percent of GDP by 2030. Even though projected fiscal imbalances associated with the Social Security system are smaller than those for federal health programs, they are still significant. Although we have been warned about such developments for many years, the difference is that today those projections are becoming reality.

Up to hear he’s discussed the size of the debt with words like ‘unfortunate’ and ‘imbalances’ and finally we here why he believes this is all a bad thing:

A large and increasing level of government debt relative to national income risks serious economic consequences. Over the longer term, rising federal debt crowds out private capital formation and thus reduces productivity growth.

What? Yes, public acquisition of real goods and services removes those goods and services from the private sector. But this is nothing about that. This is about deficits reducing the ability of firms to raise financial capital to invest in real investment goods and services to keep up productivity.

The type of crowding out the chairman is warning about is part of loanable funds theory, which is applicable to fixed exchange rate regimes, not floating fx regimes. This is a very serious error.

To the extent that increasing debt is financed by borrowing from abroad, a growing share of our future income would be devoted to interest payments on foreign-held federal debt.

Yes, if the interest payments set by the Fed are high enough, that will happen. However it isn’t necessarily a problem, particularly with the foreign sector’s near 0% propensity to spend their interest income on real goods and services. Japan, for example, as yet to spend a dime of it’s over $1 trillion in dollar holdings accumulated over the last six decades, and china’s holdings only seem to grow as well. In fact, the only way paying interest on the debt could be a problem is if that interest income is subsequently spent in a way we don’t approve of, and it’s easy enough to cross that bridge when we come to it.

High levels of debt also impair the ability of policymakers to respond effectively to future economic shocks and other adverse events.

There is no actual, operational impairment to spend whatever they want whenever they want. Federal spending is not constrained by revenues, as a simple fact of monetary operations. The only nominal constraints on spending are political, and the only constraints on what can be bought are what is offered for sale.

Even the prospect of unsustainable deficits has costs, including an increased possibility of a sudden fiscal crisis.

Where does this come from??? Surely he’s not comparing the US govt, the issuer of the dollar, where he spends by using his computer to mark up numbers in bank accounts, to Greece, a user of the euro, that doesn’t ‘clear its own checks’ like the ECB and the Fed do?

As we have seen in a number of countries recently, interest rates can soar quickly if investors lose confidence in the ability of a government to manage its fiscal policy.

He is looking at Greece!

Although historical experience and economic theory do not show the exact threshold at which the perceived risks associated with the U.S. public debt would increase markedly, we can be sure that, without corrective action, our fiscal trajectory is moving the nation ever closer to that point.

‘That point’ applies to users of a currency, like Greece, the other euro members, US states, businesses, households, etc.

But it does not apply to issuers of their own currency, like the US, Japan, UK, etc.

Is it possible the Fed chairman does not know this???

Perhaps the most important thing for people to understand about the federal budget is that maintaining the status quo is not an option. Creditors will not lend to a government whose debt, relative to national income, is rising without limit; so, one way or the other, fiscal adjustments sufficient to stabilize the federal budget must occur at some point.

Again with the ‘some point’ thing. There is no ‘some point’ for issuers of their own currency, like Japan, who’s debt to GDP is maybe 200% and 10 year JGB’s are trading at 1.15%.

These adjustments could take place through a careful and deliberative process that weighs priorities and gives individuals and firms adequate time to adjust to changes in government programs and tax policies. Or the needed fiscal adjustments could come as a rapid and much more painful response to a looming or actual fiscal crisis in an environment of rising interest rates, collapsing confidence and asset values, and a slowing economy. The choice is ours to make.

Right, the sky is falling.

Achieving Fiscal Sustainability

As if we didn’t already and automatically have it as the issuer of the currency.

The primary long-term goal for federal budget policy must be achieving fiscal sustainability.

What happened to his dual mandates of low inflation and full employment? That’s just for the Fed, but not for budget policy?

Well, if you believe the sky is falling no telling what your priority would be.

A straightforward way to define fiscal sustainability is as a situation in which the ratio of federal debt to national income is stable or moving down over the longer term.

And what does ‘straightforward’ mean? The math is easy? Is that how to set goals for the nation?

This goal can be attained by bringing spending, excluding interest payments, roughly in line with revenues, or in other words, by approximately balancing the primary budget. Given the sharp run-up in debt over the past few years, it would be reasonable to plan for a period of primary budget surpluses, which would serve eventually to bring the ratio of debt to national income back toward pre-recession levels.

All arbitrary measures not tied down to real world consequences apart from being a defensive move to keep the sky from falling.

Fiscal sustainability is a long-run concept. Achieving fiscal sustainability, therefore, requires a long-run plan, one that reduces deficits over an extended period and that, to the fullest extent possible, is credible, practical, and enforceable. In current circumstances, an advantage of taking a longer-term perspective in forming concrete plans for fiscal consolidation is that policymakers can avoid a sudden fiscal contraction that might put the still-fragile recovery at risk.

A glimmer of hope here where he seems to recognize how fiscal adjustments alter the real economy. Unfortunately, with the sky about to fall, he has more important fish to fry.

At the same time, acting now to put in place a credible plan for reducing future deficits would not only enhance economic performance in the long run,

Right, so govt doesn’t crowd out private capital formation with a floating fx regime…

but could also yield near-term benefits by leading to lower long-term interest rates and increased consumer and business confidence.

Yes, long term rates would likely be lower, because markets, which anticipate Fed rate settings, would believe the economy would be weak for a very long time, and therefore the odds of rate hikes would be lower.

While it is crucial to have a federal budget that is sustainable,

Don’t want to crowd out that private capital that gets borrowed from banks where the causation runs from loans to deposits (there’s no such thing as banks running out of money to lend).

our fiscal policies should also reflect the nation’s priorities by providing the conditions to support ongoing gains in living standards and by striving to be fair both to current and future generations.

Living standards are best supported by full employment policy, which happens to be a Fed mandate, in case he’s forgotten.

Interesting question, does the Fed’s mandate extend to influencing policy through speeches as to what others should do, or is it just a mandate for monetary policy decisions?

In addressing our long-term fiscal challenges, we should reform the government’s tax policies and spending priorities so that they not only reduce the deficit, but also enhance the long-term growth potential of our economy–for example, by increasing incentives to work and to save, by encouraging investment in the skills of our workforce, by stimulating private capital formation, by promoting research and development, and by providing necessary public infrastructure.

Big fat fallacy of composition there. Especially from a Princeton professor who should know better.

We cannot reasonably expect to grow our way out of our fiscal imbalances, but a more productive economy will ease the tradeoffs that we face.

Making Fiscal Plans
It is easy to call for sustainable fiscal policies but much harder to deliver them. The issues are not simply technical; they are also closely tied to our values and priorities as a nation. It is little wonder that the debates have been so intense and progress so difficult to achieve.

Recently, negotiations over our long-run fiscal policies have become tied to the issue of raising the statutory limit for federal debt. I fully understand the desire to use the debt limit deadline to force some necessary and difficult fiscal policy adjustments, but the debt limit is the wrong tool for that important job. Failing to raise the debt ceiling in a timely way would be self-defeating

Maybe, but he’s just guessing.

if the objective is to chart a course toward a better fiscal situation for our nation.

The current level of the debt and near-term borrowing needs reflect spending and revenue choices that have already been approved by the current and previous Congresses and Administrations of both political parties. Failing to raise the debt limit would require the federal government to delay or renege on payments for obligations already entered into. In particular, even a short suspension of payments on principal or interest on the Treasury’s debt obligations could cause severe disruptions in financial markets and the payments system, induce ratings downgrades of U.S. government debt, create fundamental doubts about the creditworthiness of the United States, and damage the special role of the dollar and Treasury securities in global markets in the longer term.

All of which has happened to Japan, with no adverse consequences on the currency or interest rates, as is necessarily the case for the issuer of a non-convertible currency and floating exchange rate.

Interest rates would likely rise, slowing the recovery and, perversely, worsening the deficit problem by increasing required interest payments on the debt for what might well be a protracted period.3

Some have suggested that payments by the Treasury could be prioritized to meet principal and interest payments on debt outstanding, thus avoiding a technical default on federal debt. However, even if that were the case, given the current size of the deficit and the uneven time pattern of government receipts and payments, the Treasury would soon find it necessary to prioritize among and withhold critical disbursements, such as Social Security and Medicare payments and funds for the military.

Yes, as congress is well aware, to the point that it’s no longer about a debt default, but about a partial shutdown of the rest of the govt.

This has been yesterday’s speech. Congress has moved on from the risk of debt default to the risk of partial govt shutdown.

Moreover, while debt-related payments might be met in this scenario, the fact that many other government payments would be delayed could still create serious concerns about the safety of Treasury securities among financial market participants.

That doesn’t follow?

The Hippocratic oath holds that, first, we should do no harm. In debating critical fiscal issues, we should avoid unnecessary actions or threats that risk shaking the confidence of investors in the ability and willingness of the U.S. government to pay its bills.

Our reps take a different oath

In raising this concern, I am by no means recommending delay or inaction in addressing the nation’s long-term fiscal challenges–quite the opposite. I urge the Congress and the Administration to work in good faith to quickly develop and implement a credible plan to achieve long-term sustainability. I hope, though, that such a plan can be achieved in the near term without resorting to brinksmanship or actions that would cast doubt on the creditworthiness of the United States.

What would such a plan look like? Clear metrics are important, together with triggers or other mechanisms to establish the credibility of the plan. For example, policymakers could commit to enacting in the near term a clear and specific plan for stabilizing the ratio of debt to GDP within the next few years and then subsequently setting that ratio on a downward path.

Again, the falling sky trumps concerns over output and employment.

Indeed, such a trajectory for the ratio of debt to GDP is comparable to the one proposed by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.4To make the framework more explicit, the President and congressional leadership could agree on a definite timetable for reaching decisions about both shorter-term budget adjustments and longer-term changes. Fiscal policymakers could look now to find substantial savings in the 10-year budget window, enforced by well-designed budget rules, while simultaneously undertaking additional reforms to address the long-term sustainability of entitlement programs.

In other words, cuts in the social security and Medicare budgets. This at a time of record excess capacity.

If only the sky wasn’t falling…

Such a framework could include a commitment to make a down payment on fiscal consolidation by enacting legislation to reduce the structural deficit over the next several years.

Conclusion
The task of developing and implementing sustainable fiscal policies is daunting, and it will involve many agonizing decisions and difficult tradeoffs. But meeting this challenge in a timely manner is crucial for our nation. History makes clear that failure to put our fiscal house in order will erode the vitality of our economy, reduce the standard of living in the United States, and increase the risk of economic and financial instability.

And what history might that be? There’s no such thing as a currency issuer ever not being able to make timely payment.

Madison sq garden will not run out of points to post on the scoreboard.

And check out the references. He relies on the information from the group he’s addressing:

References
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (2010). The CRFB Medium and Long-Term Baselines. Washington: CRFB, August.

Congressional Budget Office (2010). The Long-Term Budget Outlook. Washington: Congressional Budget Office, June (revised August).

National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform (2010). The Moment of Truth: Report of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. Washington: NCFRR, December.

Zivney, Terry L., and Richard D. Marcus (1989). “The Day the United States Defaulted on Treasury Bills,” Financial Review, vol. 24 (August), pp. 475-89.

Modern Monetary Theory: The Last Progressive Left Standing

Posted on June 13, 2011 @ 1:51 pm (Monday) by WARREN MOSLER

Modern Monetary Theory: The Last Progressive Left Standing

By Warren Mosler

China GDP history

Posted on June 8, 2011 @ 12:04 pm (Wednesday) by WARREN MOSLER

This is year over year ‘real’ GDP growth.

Note the recurring first quarter spikes followed by dips, presumably due to front loading annual state spending and lending.

Not much of a spike this year, due to cutbacks in state spending/lending, but the reduced spending/lending that resulted in the reported growth was likewise front loaded for 2011.

Question now is what the traditional second half dip will look like.
Seems to me it could get pretty ugly.

Also, Japan’s earthquake looks to have weakened world growth more than originally expected. And it’s all probably path dependent, meaning growth simply resumes from the lower, post quake base, especially in light of their reluctance to increase their deficit spending.

Europe is also weakening due to self imposed austerity.

And the US is heck bent on doing same as both parties agree on the need for multi trillions of deficit reduction, while Fed policies continue to work to reduce govt. interest payments to the economy and continue to shift income from savers to bank net interest margins.

H2 is still looking hopeless to me, and also looking like we’re flying without a net.

latest conference slides

Posted on May 31, 2011 @ 1:37 pm (Tuesday) by WARREN MOSLER

MMT and the Theory of the Monetary Circuit

G8: Deficit Terrorism Leads Agenda

Posted on May 27, 2011 @ 8:17 am (Friday) by WARREN MOSLER

In the land of the blind, the one eyed man gets his good eye poked out.

While the statement regarding the US is perhaps a tad on the soft side, globally, political will and public support appears firmly in place for further stagnation and a too large output gap for the foreseeable future.

World Recovery Is Gaining Strength, Watch Debt: G8

May 27 (Reuters) — The Group of Eight leaders agreed on Friday that the global economy recovery was becoming more “self-sustained,” although higher commodity prices were hampering further growth.

In a communique to be issued at the end of a two-day summit in France, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters, European nations, the United States and Japan all agreed to ensure their public finances were sustainable.

“The global recovery is gaining strength and is becoming more self-sustained. However, downside risks remain, and internal and external imbalances are still a concern,” the communique said.

“The sharp increase in commodity prices and their excessive volatility pose a significant headwind to the recovery. In this context, we agreed to remain focused on the action required to enhance the sustainability of public finances, to strengthen the recovery and foster employment, to reduce risks and ensure strong, sustainable and balanced growth, including through structural reforms.

Europe has adopted a broad package of measures to deal with the sovereign debt crisis faced by a few countries, and it will continue to address the situation with determination and to pursue rigorous fiscal consolidation alongside structural reforms to support growth.

The United States will put in place a clear and credible medium-term fiscal consolidation framework, consistent with considerations of job creation and economic growth.

In Japan, while providing resources for the reconstruction after the disaster, the authorities will also address the issue of sustainability of public finances.”

Philadelphia Fed survey, existing home sales, leading indicators all disappoint

Posted on May 19, 2011 @ 1:22 pm (Thursday) by WARREN MOSLER

Typical street review of today’s numbers from Goldman.

As suspected, look for continued downward revisions to initial 4% Q2 estimates.

And note the graph below showing employment as a % of the population.
The economy continues to be demand constrained at very low levels.
(That is, for the size govt we have, we are grossly over taxed.)

There could be as many as 30 million additional people gainfully employed in a good economy.
And a general prosperity far beyond what anyone might imagine.

But not to be with Congress, mistakenly fearful of the US facing a financial crisis like Greece,
moving forward with their death by 1000 cuts agenda.

USA: Philadelphia Fed Survey – Another Decline

Actual: 3.9
Previous: 18.5
Consensus: 20.0
Released: 19 May 2011 at 10:00 (New York time)

Another Decline
BOTTOM LINE: More signs of slower growth from the Philly Fed index and existing home sales.

US-MAP
Existing home sales -2 (2, -1)
Philadelphia Fed index -12 (4, -3)

KEY NUMBERS:
Existing home sales -0.8% in Apr (mom) vs. GS +2.0%, median forecast +2.0%.
Philadelphia Fed index +3.9 in May vs. GS +22.0, median forecast +20.0.
Leading indicators -0.3% in Apr (mom) vs. median forecast +0.1%.

MAIN POINTS:
1. The Philadelphia Fed’s monthly manufacturing survey weakened sharply for the second month in a row. The headline index of “general business activity” fell to 3.9, from 18.5 in April and 43.4 in March. This still suggests factory sector growth, but only barely. Most of the detailed activity indexes also weakened – the new orders index fell to 5.4 from 18.8, the shipments index to 6.5 from 29.1, and the unfilled orders index to -7.8 from 12.9 – with the exception of employment, which rose to 22.1 from 12.3 in April. (We have no information on how much of the drop in the Philly survey over the past two months could have been related to supply chain issues associated with the Japanese earthquake, but this is not a region with an especially high concentration of vehicle manufacturing.) Price pressures eased a little but remain high in historical terms.

2. Existing home sales declined by 0.8% mom in April to an annualized rate of 5.05 million units. Consensus forecasts had expected a moderate increase. Home sales dropped in three of the four Census regions during the month, with the largest declines in the Northeast. The number of homes currently offered for sales was about unchanged after seasonal adjustment, at about 3.7 million units (the months supply of homes increased, but this was likely due to seasonal variation). The median sales price of existing homes increased by about 0.5% mom on a seasonally-adjusted basis-an encouraging turn after several months of weakness. Existing home sales prices are down 5% year-over-year.

3. Rounding out the weaker-than-expected data, the index of leading economic indicators fell by 0.3% mom in April. The consensus had expected a 0.1% increase.

Mosler Economics / Modern Monetary Theory

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Tag Archives: MMT

MMT to President Obama and Members of Congress:

Geithner- We’re going to try to get the biggest deal possible

It is a pity that he doesn’t know the answer himself