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A "Trillion" is Mind-Boggling: No, Even Worse! |
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FORECASTS & TRENDS E-LETTER IN THIS ISSUE: 1. A “Trillion” is Mind-Boggling 2. The “Tax the Rich” Argument 3. Four $1+ Trillion Budget Deficits in a Row! 4. Fed Sending Mixed Signals on QE3 Today’s Overview I would wager (with odds) that very few Americans understand just how mind-bogglingly enormous $1 trillion is. The analogy I will share with you today will knock your socks off! It certainly did mine. Yet our government is running trillion-dollar annual budget deficits like it’s no big deal. And it’s not just Obama – the first trillion-dollar deficit, which was incurred in FY2009, was actually the result of President George W. Bush’s budget, one of the few legitimate things Obama really inherited from “W.” I begin today by summarizing a recent eye-opening analysis – a great video, actually – that concludes that our continued trillion-dollar deficits will send us into the abyss. I realize that this is nothing new to many of my readers, but we need to continually remind ourselves how we are willingly and knowingly sending our country into economic and financial ruin. You will definitely want to watch this video and forward it on to others! A “Trillion” is Mind-Boggling: No, Even Worse! Most Americans know that a “trillion” dollars is a LOT of money. But with our government running trillion-dollar budget deficits for the last three years (soon to be four and then five), many people have become numb to the magnitude, unfortunately. I have seen a lot of attempts at putting the concept of a trillion in perspective, but the one that follows is the best I’ve seen.
Read that again. And maybe again. Let it sink in for a few seconds. Does that not put a “trillion” in a better perspective than you’ve ever thought about it before? It certainly did for me. Sure, we all knew that a trillion was a huge number. But this analogy just nails it. Currently, the US national debt is $15.931 trillion. That figure does not include tens of trillions more in unfunded liabilities for Medicare, Social Security, government pensions, etc. For purposes of discussion, let’s call the national debt $16 trillion, since we’ll be there before the end of this year.
That’s where we are today folks! There is simply no way our government will ever pay off this enormous debt. Yet buyers around the world still line up to purchase Treasury debt at near record low interest rates. The yield on 10-year Treasury notes recently fell to 1.4%, while 30-year T-bonds fell to 2.3%. Why would anyone loan the US money at such low rates? That’s a long discussion for another time.
The “Tax the Rich” Argument To watch the video, CLICK HERE. It will be well worth your time. Robbins demonstrates how much (or how little) revenue would be gained by various tax increases on the wealthy, such as:
These onerous tax rates would come nowhere near balancing the budget, as Robbins illustrates in the video with facts and figures. He then looks at actually confiscating wealth, such as:
Please understand that Robbins is not proposing these draconian tax increases and wealth confiscation; he is merely using them to illustrate how much revenue they would create for the government. The point of the video is that no amount of increased taxation would fully pay for what our government spends each year. More importantly, the video makes clear that, whether taxes are increased or not, we have to significantly CUT SPENDING at some point. I highly recommend that you forward this video around to as many people as possible. It is loaded with facts, statistics and figures on our monstrous debt that most people have never seen. Four $1+ Trillion Budget Deficits in a Row! Let’s take a quick look at how the US budget deficits soared out of control in the last few years. Here are our annual budget deficits for the last six fiscal years, including this year’s estimate, from the Congressional Budget Office:
FY 2012* $1.327 trillion FY 2009 $1.413 trillion Our national debt has exploded by $5.33 trillion in the last four years alone! The CBO estimates that the budget deficit in FY 2013 will decline to $901 billion, but that number is almost certainly too low given that the economy is not recovering as the CBO forecasted. President Obama’s proposed federal budget for FY2013 called for spending totaling $3.8 trillion, the largest ever. Fortunately, that budget was defeated unanimously in Congress earlier this year. Since the Senate has not passed a budget in more than three years, we have no budget. Even so, that doesn’t mean Obama won’t spend $3.8 trillion if he is re-elected. But is gets even scarier. The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that federal spending for the next 10 years will skyrocket to a cumulative $46.956 trillion! That averages out to apprx. $4.7 trillion a year, versus the estimate of $3.7 trillion for FY2012. The OMB projects that government spending will escalate to a whopping $5.8 trillion a year in 10 years. Prediction: That will never happen! Then again, I probably would have made the same prediction if you told me 10 years ago that federal spending would be at $3.7 trillion a year today. Interest Expense on the National Debt Interest rates are near historic lows. I say “near” historic lows because rates on 30-year Treasury bonds and 10-year T-notes were at all-time lows earlier this summer. But over the last month or so, rates have surprisingly ticked up. 30-year T-bonds have moved from below 2.5% to 2.9%. The yield on 10-year Notes has jumped from 1.38% to near 1.9%.
Most analysts agree that the latest jump in rates is only a “correction” and not a major change in the trend. They cite the fact that the Fed continues to buy long-term Treasuries in its effort to keep interest rates as low as possible. So this can’t be a major trend change in interest rates, some say. We’ll see. Anyway, that’s not my point today. My point today is that with interest rates near historic lows, you would think that the government would be paying less to finance our national debt, right? Wrong! In fact, the debt service on the national debt was the highest in history in 2011, even though interest rates were near record lows. The dramatic increase in federal spending has more than offset the benefit of lower interest rates. Most Americans pay little attention to the interest on our federal debt, but it’s a rapidly growing problem, and will become even more so whenever interest rates rise again (which has already started). The interest expense on our national debt includes the monthly interest for:
Amortized discount or premium on Treasury bills, notes and bonds is also included in the monthly interest expense. Take a look at the table below from the Treasury Department. As you can see, interest expense on the national debt has increased rather dramatically over the last 23 years, reaching an all-time high of $454.4 billion in 2011 – despite the fact that interest rates were very low last year. INTEREST PAID ON THE NATIONAL DEBT
I don’t have to tell you what will happen when interest rates go up and it becomes more and more expensive to finance our ever-growing mountain of debt. Fed Sending Mixed Signals on QE3 Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke testified before the Senate Banking Committee on July 17. In his prepared remarks, he warned lawmakers about the looming fiscal cliff, and that if action is not taken to avoid automatic tax increases and spending cuts on January 2, the economy would fall into recession next year. Regarding whether or not the Fed is considering QE3, Bernanke was once again vague, saying only that it would depend on the economy and the pace of jobs growth in “coming months.” The Fed Open Market Committee met on July 31-August 1. The policy statement following that meeting was little changed from previous FOMC statements earlier this year. With regard to QE3 or other stimulus, the statement read: The Committee will closely monitor incoming information on economic and financial developments and will provide additional accommodation as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labor market conditions in a context of price stability. [Emphasis added.] While the language was tweaked ever so slightly, it was really nothing different. Basically, the FOMC is saying that the Fed stands ready to implement more stimulus, but only if it has to. The next FOMC meeting will be on September 12-13. There is some division within the FOMC on the question of more QE or other stimulus. Jeffrey Lacker, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and a voting member of the FOMC, said in a recent interview with The Associated Press that the Fed can only do so much to lower the 8.3% unemployment rate. He stated: "There are a lot of people overestimating the extent to which monetary policy is capable of having any sustained effect on growth or labor markets." Lacker has dissented from the past five FOMC policy statements. He has maintained that the Fed has done what it can to bolster a weak economy and that going further risks triggering high inflation. Obviously, he and Bernanke disagree.
In the wide-ranging interview, Lacker explained why he has objected to the Fed’s language in all five policy statements this year. The statements have said that the Fed plans to keep its key interest rate at record low levels until at least late 2014.
The central bank has kept its benchmark Fed Funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, at a record low of zero to 0.25% since December 2008. It began including a date for how long rates could stay at that low level in August 2011 when it said the plan was to keep rates at exceptionally low levels until at least mid-2013. It extended that date to late 2014 at its meeting in January and has retained that language at meetings since then. We should all pay special attention to the upcoming economic reports which may hold the key to whether the Fed launches QE3 at the next meeting, or not. Key among those reports will be the second estimate of 2Q GDP which comes out next Wednesday, August 29. The first estimate put 2Q GDP at only 1.5% (annual rate). Finally, let’s not forget that Fed Chairman Bernanke is scheduled to give his annual speech at the Jackson Hole Economic Symposium on Friday, August 31. It will be interesting to see if he has any surprises in store this year. Sign Up For My BLOG If you haven’t done it yet, be sure to register to receive my weekly Blog. I post on Wednesdays and Fridays and they are short (and free of course) On Wednesdays, Spencer Wright and I handicap the presidential race, without all the mumbo-jumbo you hear on TV. To read our post from last Wednesday CLICK HERE. On Fridays, I write about whatever I find most interesting each week. To read last Friday’s posting CLICK HERE. To receive my blogs automatically, SIGN UP here. We never share your e-mail address with anyone – never have, never will. Very best regards,
Gary D. Halbert SPECIAL ARTICLES
Bad Economic Policy is Killing Patient
To Trim the Budget, Let’s Slash Corporate Welfare
How Paul Ryan has changed the race
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