An economics, investment, trading and policy blog with a focus on Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). We seek the truth, avoid the mainstream and are virulently anti-neoliberalism.
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Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Bernanke: start work now to curb US budget deficit
Does Bernanke believe that non-governmental (private sector) savings are too high? Wasn't he complaining a couple of years ago that they were too low and we were too dependent on "foreign savings??"
Well, saying, "The government should start to curb the deficit," is the EXACT same thing as saying that the government should take away private sector savings, because that's what it is!
Whatever's on the government side of the ledger is the equal-but-opposite on the private sector side. The fact that Bernanke doesn't realize this is astonishing!
(Go see my chart a few posts back.)
GOVERNMENT DEFICITS ADD TO PRIVATE SECTOR SAVINGS!
ONLY GOV'T CAN BE A NET SUPPLIER OF SAVIGS!
I hope you enjoyed this market rally over the past three months because if the Administration follows Bernanke's advice--and it's likely that they will-kiss the rally goodbye and say, "Hello," to new lows in the market sometime later this year or next year.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteMr McTeer was on CNBS the other day and he takes on the "printing money" echo chamber
here in this clip.
I know you favor McTeer and I post this to give you some hope that there are other rational, professional persons out there trying to get thru to these people. Try to not break your computer during the first part as McTeer doesnt start talking until 2 minutes in, but while he is waiting you can almost see his disdain for the language the other panel members are using.
Interesting is that McTeer points out that Reserve Balances peaked about 6 months ago (again, a rational person would analyze the data), as we have already discussed here (ie balances are well below the Jan 1, 2009 levels).
Resp, Matt
Matt,
ReplyDeleteThat's a good clip, thanks. Bob was one of my favorite guests when I had my radio show. He is one of "us" when it comes to in-paradigm thinking. I was just disappointed the time he said that a lot of the things we talk about--like the government can spend all it wants under a floating exchange rate regime--we "just can't say." It seemed to be a cop out. How can an intelligent and thoughtful guy like him (or others like him) not come up with a way to tell the truth? His comment was very disheartening. That leaves it up to us, but we are a tiny, tiny, voice fighting against a vast belief system. I'm beginning to think that our only hope is an individual one: that each and every one of us who understands the truth realize that we are not going to eradicate this dangerous belief system and that eventually, it will destroy the "body." Our job is not so much to fight to change it, but to protect ourselves from this coming disaster, so that we will have the funds to be secure when it happens or even to move somewhere else if need be.
it's the S & L crisis reprised to a bigger extent but without the high interest rates
ReplyDeletehowever, volcker is looming around obama