Wednesday, August 26, 2015

In typical clueless Bloomberg reporting style, company says U.S. has no options to avoid downturn

Looks like Bloomberg has a new "Caroline Baum." Remember her? She was the cinema major who regularly opined on economic matters and each time it was a shock and awe display of economic and monetary ignorance.

But Baum left earlier this year so the new girl over there is some chick named Kasia Klimasinska. Today she writes that the U.S. had, like, zero options to deal with a downturn.

 Bloomberg LLP is clueless


The headline caught my attention (stupid fodder) so I checked it out. I wanted to see if she said anything about fiscal policy or, if was all going to be about the Fed not having any "bullets."

And guess what? I did find this pearl on fiscal policy:

U.S. debt stands at 74 percent of gross domestic product, compared with 35 percent in 2007, based on a Congressional Budget Office report released Tuesday. That burden is expected to grow further in coming years, limiting government options for additional fiscal stimulus in the form of spending or lower taxes.
While the U.S. could follow in the footsteps of Japan, Ireland, Italy or Greece, which have racked up   even higher debt-to-GDP levels, heftier deficits would be a hard political sell. After all, Congress has been loathe to borrow, curbing spending through "sequester" limits and pushing the nation to the brink of default in 2011 amid disputes over a debt-limit extension.

Yes, you did see that..."follow in the footsteps of Greece." If it came out of Bloomberg you KNEW that had to be there.

When she says that the debt level of 74% of GDP "limits government options" I'm left wondering, according to who? Her?

To her credit she says it would be a hard political sell. She's right on that score, but that's only because we have an inept leader named Barack Obama who believes that "we're out of money."

Then she says this:

Partly for that reason, the Bank for International Settlements has warned that still-low rates around the world pose a looming economic risk. 

So according to Kasia it looks like the United States of America is taking marching orders from the Bank for International Settlements now.

And Mike Bloomberg built a $40 billion fortune on this crap? I'm REALLY in the wrong business.

3 comments:

Ralph Musgrave said...

Similarly moronic article here:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-lacks-ammo-for-next-economic-crisis-1439865442

mike norman said...

Yep. Pervasive, institutional, idiocy.

Roger Erickson said...

Wasn't that an Edgar Allen Poe story?

"Neversense, spake the TINA" ?

Or was it: "The Telltale Blockhead" ?