There is just far too much attention being paid to the so-called Fiscal Cliff occurring at the end of this year. The expiration of the "Bush-era" tax cuts and forced spending reductions taking place because of the Sequestration, really doesn't amount too much more than a fiscal speed bump. In fact, less government spending is one of the pathways to prosperity; rather than becoming some make-believe economic catastrophe. And although raising tax rates isn't an optimal solution, there could still be a small benefit if there was a resulting increase in revenue, which then served to reduce annual deficits and began to address our long-term fiscal imbalances.
However, there is indeed a real fiscal cliff that the United States is racing towards. It's the very same cliff that Europe has already dived over. That cliff is based on the collapse of our debt and dollar markets, resulting from the lost faith on the part of international investors. And that loss of faith is being greatly facilitated by our Federal Reserve.
The Fed has been on an avowed inflation quest since 2008. They have sought inflation by systematically seeking to destroy the value of the dollar. By already printing trillions of dollars and now threatening to print even more, Mr. Bernanke has not only crumbled our currency but has also ruined the purchasing power of the middle class. But the worst part of the central banks' assault on our nation is the fact that Bernanke has been a tremendous enabler of the U.S. government's fiscal irresponsibility. He has duped our leaders into believing they can borrow an unlimited amount of money at nearly zero cost indefinitely.
I wrote this ominous warning back in May of 2010:
However, a temporary reprieve from significantly higher yields has been given courtesy of Europe. Investors are fleeing Greek debt and the Euro currency in favor of the U.S. dollar and our bond market. But this is a temporary phenomenon and in no way bails out America from its own fiscal transgressions. In just a few years our publicly traded debt will reach nearly $15 trillion. If interest rates just rise to their historic averages, the interest on our debt (depending on the level of economic growth and tax receipts) will absorb anywhere from 30-50 percent of total Federal revenue. If we indeed reach that point, massive monetization of the debt may be deployed by the Fed in a vain effort to keep rates from spiraling out of control.
Back in 2010 I calculated that U.S. publicly traded debt would become unmanageable by 2015. We are moving ever closer to fulfilling that prediction, as our publicly trade debt has just soared past $11 trillion. In fact, since the recession began in December 2007, the amount of publicly traded U.S. debt has increased by 117 percent! Since the Fed has managed to temporarily and artificially manipulate interest rates lower throughout that increase of debt, the government believes there is no rush to change its borrowing and spending addiction. However, there is a limit to how much a country can borrow with impunity. If you debate that point just ask the Greeks, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish and Italians.
But now Boston Fed president, Eric Rosengren, has just predicted our central bank will not only cease paying interest on excess reserves, but will also commit to an open-ended form of counterfeiting. He believes QE III should be results orientated in that the Fed should obligate itself to continue to print money until the unemployment rate and nominal GDP hit their -- yet to be named -- specified targets.
The only problem with that is boosting nominal GDP requires boosting inflation; and rising inflation serves to raise the unemployment rate, not bring it down. So there is a conflict that the Fed is completely unaware of or refuses to acknowledge.
History has proven that no matter where it is tried, massive central bank intervention to control interest rates and rescue the economy increases the number of those who are unemployed. That tactic is failing miserably now in Europe and has utterly failed here in the U.S.
With central banks now acting in unison to garner complete control of interest rates, the only mechanism available that will eventually force them to stop piling on more debt is the repudiation of fiat currencies that back those bonds on the part of the free market.
Central banks across the globe are about to launch a coordinated effort to boost inflation. You would be wise to prepare accordingly.
Michael Pento is the President of Pento Portfolio Strategies
Follow Michael Pento on Twitter: www.twitter.com/michaelpento1
Federal Reserve officials tour Bakken region
You write that "if interest rates just rise to their historic averages, the interest on our debt will absorb anywhere from 30-50 percent of total Federal revenue." You might also mention that this would take many years to happen - the US sells debt (bills, notes and bonds) at a FIXED rate at an average maturity (as of today) of 65 months - because when interest rates rose it would force the US government to rise above politics and act dramatically (i.e., budget cuts, tax increases, etc.) in order to prevent the outcome you describe. I totally agree that higher interest rates are inevitable and that the bond market will ultimately force the US to do the right thing, but the truth of the matter is simply that we cannot ever use half our revenue to pay the interest on our debt, and something that cannot happen, will not happen, by definition. Maybe we'll default on a portion of our debt, who knows? But one thing is certain: The interest on the US debt will NEVER absorb 30-50% of its revenues. The path that would trigger such an outcome would also trigger forces that would inevitably veer from it.
Meaningless hyperbole from Mr. Pento.
On The Bernank - "destroying the currency" , on purpose.
The $USD has been stable across the Euro, Pound Canada$, Swiss Franc , etc, throughout the period. So, where's the beef?
While its true that QE has done nothing - it's not The Bernank's fault.
All The Bernank can do is issue more DEBT.
What is needed is a good old Bush-style intervention.
$2k per head would actually start movement.
We do NOT need more DEBT.
We NEED more EQUITY.
The financialized economy has frozen positive movement due to the toxic assets being massaged from the BIGbank's balance sheets.
We need monetary "transmission" mechanisms that avoid the banking sector.
We need some real MONEY, not more debt.
Congressman Kucinich has a proposal for fixing this mess.
http://kucinich.house.gov/uploadedfiles/need_act_final_112th.pdf
Better have a look.
For the Money System Common.
Bernanke’s policies are doing more harm than good. Subsidized interest rates rob savers of income depressing demand. The printed monies only support Wall Street casinos speculation driving up consumer prices and lowering aggregate demand.
Both political parties are guilty in bringing about our downfall. Our government is a wholly owned subsidiary of corporate America. Our spending is not so much excessive as is it useless. The Military Industrial Security Complex consumes a trillion dollars per year and puts nothing of use into the economy. Our tax code penalizes work and rewards speculation. Corporate welfare is rampant at both the Federal and State levels. Our immigration policies allow unscrupulous businesses to evade the law and grind those lowest on the totem pole into perpetual poverty. Egregious trade treaties send our productive incomes to slave wage Nations with corporate America pocketing the difference. Our most talented are underutilized by outsourcing and insourcing via corporate friendly work visas. Monetary policy is not the answer.
Making the things that they consume instead of selling title to everything of value in their nation that was created by previous working generations of their citizens in order to pay for their government activities and their consumer products keeps title to their privately owned wealth generating assets in their industrialized nations.
The USA need to re-industrialize and create new wealth so that some of that wealth can be taxed to create funds to pay for Federal Government expenses instead of borrowing money from wealth creating nations to pay for Federal Government expenses.
We must consider all of the children in the USA as "our children" and make sure that we leave them the opportunities to enjoy a good life instead of them having to work hard in some dirty and dangerous factory to make things to export as foreign trade in order to repay the US Treasury bonds that we promised the foreign bond holders that they would work and repay those bonds (loans).
US citizens should have used that borrowed money to re-industrialize in order to CREATE NEW NATIONAL WEALTH, instead of spending that money on infrastructure, rail systems, police, fire protection, foreign wars where the US does not fight to win, and other activities that consume instead of create new national wealth.
Is that true if some nation increased their GDP by creating wealth, instead of increasing the GDP by the government borrowing money and spending that money on government activities that do not create any wealth that the government could confiscate some of that newly created wealth to pay for infrastructure, wars, police, firemen, and etc.?
US Businesses must also pay much lower (hourly wages) pay scales to US citizens in the USA that are well below the wages that they pay foreigners in foreign Asian nations in order to COMPENSATE for the additional costs of EPA compliance, additional US labor payroll costs that the National Healthcare, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, and other Federal Government payroll taxes add on top of the direct costs of US labor payrolls, when economically justifying where to locate a new manufacturing facility.
Winning...
The US government’s FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS created in the last 20 years ECONOMICALLY REQUIRE that US businesses utilize foreign labor, environmental regulations and electrical costs, if they want to provide the lowest possible price in the USA for each US consumer purchase , instead of the US business going out of business.
The US Congress needs to propose legislation to repeal President Clinton's NAFTA, GATT, WTO, MFN trade with China, Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, H-1b visas, etc.; George W. Bush’s 14 additional FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS (with Jordan, Morocco, and other young democracies of Central America); plus President Obama’s multiple new FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS with Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, New Zealand, Australia, Chile and Peru and several other Asian and South American nations.
It is amazing how many well known and highly regarded HuffPo blogging economists make the case that current low interest rates mean we should borrow now like there's no tomorrow. If we do, there WILL be no tomorrow! Only a small fraction of the public debt is long-term - most rolls over every few years at new rates. Government is NOT locking in these rates for decades.
And as David Stockman says, "on the margin, no one owns a Treasury bond: they just rent it on borrowed money." When the upside of renting them goes away, so will the demand... "the great margin call in the sky."
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/david-stockman-capital-markets-are-simply-branch-casino-central-bank
The discounts/interest rates offered by the public at public FED auctions to purchase our freshly printed US securities by wealth creating people in industrialized manufacturing nations that have accumulated US dollars depends and reflects upon the confidence that the USA instills these foreigners by our economic actions and the US government financial ability to repay these US Treasury Bonds when they become due.
This GDP has nothing to do with the ability of a nation to repay their national debt, especially if the majority of the GDP activity was federal government borrowing money from wealth producing entities in the industrial nations and then spending this borrowed money to pay for bureaucrat government payrolls, infrastructure, unemployment benefits, education, welfare, retirement pensions, high speed rail, free medical services, housing, wars, social services, pork barrel projects and other tax funded government activities that do not produce any national wealth that the nation could use to repay national (sovereign) debt, reduce the foreign trade deficit, or to re-industrialize their nations in order to create new national wealth?