This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Guest Post: Is the Recovery "Self-Sustaining"? Here's A Test
- Ben Bernanke
- Ben Bernanke
- BLS
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Central Banks
- China
- Congressional Budget Office
- Department Of Energy
- Fannie Mae
- Federal Deficit
- Federal Reserve
- Freddie Mac
- Free Money
- Gross Domestic Product
- Guest Post
- Japan
- Medicare
- National Debt
- New York Times
- Quantitative Easing
- Recession
- recovery
- Stimulus Spending
- Turkey
- Unemployment
Submitted by Charles Hugh Smith from Of Two Minds
Is the Recovery "Self-Sustaining"? Here's a Test
Here's a simple test of whether the economic recovery is self-sustaining or not: cut Federal spending back to 2007 levels (a $1 trillion reduction) and cancel all Fed intervention such as quantitative easing.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke has suggested the economic recovery is almost "self-sustaining," meaning it is no longer totally dependent on Federal stimulus and unprecedented Fed intervention for its "growth."
The key idea here is simple: all the extraordinary stimulus spending, all the bailouts and all Fed programs--buying up $1 trillion in questionable mortgages, $600 billion in quantititative easing purchases of Treasury bonds, and so on--was all necessary to "get the economy through this rough patch." At some magical point we are now approaching (or so we are reassured), the private (non-government) economy will start growing organically, meaning that non-State economic activity will generate a virtuous cycle of economic growth that fuels future growth.
The alternative vision is a bit more bleak. In this view, all the Federal Government and Fed spending and intervention have accomplished is encourage the culture of "extend and pretend" and "free money," and raised the vulnerability of the Status Quo to exceptionally dangerous heights.
In other words, from this height, there can be no "soft landing" when the asset bubbles and stupendous Federal borrowing both collapse.
Here's a simple test of whether the economic recovery is self-sustaining or not: cut Federal spending back to 2007 levels (a $1 trillion reduction) and cancel all Fed intervention such as quantitative easing. If the economy is self-sustaining, it will move forward without Federal spending and Fed intervention.
If "self-sustaining" is a fiction, an illusion, a mere figment of propaganda deployed to enable the Status Quo to feast off the remaining productive elements of the U.S. economy, then the economy will absolutely crater.
Let's compare Federal spending in 2004, 2007 and 2010. Remarkably, the Federal government spends $1 trillion more a year now than it did a mere three years ago and $1.5 trillion more than it did a brief six years ago. Here are the numbers from the Office of Management and Budget website::
revenues
2004 $1.88 trillion
2007 $2.56 trillion
2010 $2.16 trillion
spending
2004 $2.29 trillion
2007 $2.72 trillion
2010 $3.72 trillion
deficit
2004 –$412 billion
2007 –$160 billion
2010 –$1.3 trillion
In three years, Federal spending jumped almost exactly $1 trillion, or 36.7%.
Here are the deficits of the past three years, and the estimated shortfalls for fiscal years 2011 and 2012:
2008: $458 billion
2009: $1.4 trillion
2010: $1.3 trillion
2011: $1.5 trillion (est.)
2012: $1.6 trillion (est.)
total: $6.258 trillion in five years.
And this isn't even the real total being added to the national debt, as “supplemental appropriations” for war costs and other large expenditures are “off budget” and not included in the “official” Federal deficit. The same is also true of funds appropriated to bail out mortgage giants Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae and other financial institutions.
Gross debt increased by $1 trillion fiscal year 2008, $1.9 trillion in 2009 and $1.7 trillion in 2010--considerably higher than the “official” deficit numbers. Debt held by the Public—which includes Treasury bonds owned by the central banks of China, Japan and other countries--jumped up 80% from $5 trillion in 2007 to $9 trillion in 2010.
Meanwhile, the U.S. economy has been treading water. In adjusted-for-inflation dollars, the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2010 was almost precisely the same as it was in 2007: $13.363 trillion in 2007 and $13.382 trillion in 2010.
So the Federal government will have spent over $6 trillion--almost 41% of the nation's annual GDP--just to keep GDP stagnant. That $1 trillion a year in extra spending is 7% of the GDP, which implies that if the Federal budget returned to the carefree, free-money days of 2007, the GDP would contract by 7%.
And that's not even counting the trillions of dollars injected into the financial system by the Federal Reserve's opaque machinations and money-printing schemes.
So what is America getting for this extra $1+ trillion in Federal spending a year? Just more of the same old Status Quo that did such an outstanding job circa 2008-2010. I have rooted around a conflicting mess of reports on Federal spending, and found precious little of that $1 trillion actually flows to those suffering from the recession.
Consider the direct costs of the Great Recession: extended unemployment costs, and food stamps (now called SNAP, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program).
In 2007, SNAP cost around $30 billion. In 2010, costs rose to $68 billion as the number of people receiving SNAP benefits rose by 15.6 million people, or 57% to 43.2 million in October 2010. So costs rose $38 billion in those three years.
The estimated cost of continuing unemployment extensions is estimated at $65 billion. According to this New York Times graphic, total unemployment program costs in 2010 were $158 billion. So together, these two recession-related programs cost about $100 billion more a year.
Let's factor in inflation from 2007 to 2010: according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), that accounts for 5% of any change. So $50 billion of that $1 trillion a year can be attributed to inflation.
The $787 billion stimulus package passed by Congress in 2009, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, is being spent over several years: $154 billion in 2009, $353 billion in 2010, $232 billion in 2011 and the remainder over 2012 and beyond.
Roughly speaking, that averages to about $250 billion for each of the recession-impacted years, but it doesn't affect the 2012 Federal spending plan much.
So where is the $1 trillion a year being spent? Around $350 billion a year can be attributed to recession-caused spending: extended unemployment, SNAP and the stimulus package.
That still leaves $650 billion unaccounted for in 2011, and more in the 2012 budget, which is not influenced by the little remaining stimulus spending. So in effect, the sum in 2012 is more on the order of $850 billion, as the stimulus funding drops to around $50 billion.
Next, let's look at the four big Federal programs:
Medicaid:
2007: $276 billion
2010: $293 billion (+17 billion)
Medicare:
2007: $395 billion
2010: $462 billion (+67 billion)
Social Security:
2007: $586 billion
2010: $724 billion (+138 billion)
Defense:
2007: $699 billion
2010: $738 billion (+39 billion)
(other sources list other totals, depending on what is included in "Defense." I leave the Department of Energy and Veterans Affairs as separate departments, but if you prefer to include them, you'll find the total budget appropriations for both of those departments increased by only a few billion.)
So these entitlement and Defense programs account for about $260 billion of the additional $1 trillion in spending. Add in the $100 billion in direct costs of recession and you get at most $360 billion. Add in inflation and you get to $410 billion.
So only $600 billion more each and every year is spent to prop up a voracious Status Quo. From various sources, here are the estimates for the Federal budget in fiscal 2011:
revenues (taxes): $2.3 trillion
(if the economy doesn't implode and the creek don't rise)
spending: $3.8 trillion
deficit--borrowed: $1.5 trillion
That $1.5 trillion is roughly 11% of GDP. The Fed has printed over $2 trillion to prop up the mortgage and Treasury markets, seeking to "extend and pretend" the valuations of defaulted assets held on the books, to suppress interest rates and last but certainly not least, to inject hundreds of billions of dollars in free money to goose the risk trade, i.e. stocks and commodities.
The Fed sees a "self-sustaining" economy as one which "only" needs $1 trillion in extra Federal spending and another $1 trillion in Federal Reserve goosing every year just to maintain the same GDP we had in 2007.
I suggest an addict analogy is more accurate: a high-cost, bloated, corrupt and inefficient cartel-State Empire of high-cost, bloated, corrupt and inefficient fiefdoms is like a heroin-addled junkie. The "high" of GDP "growth" keeps requiring ever-larger hits of smack; any slackening in this accelerating consumption of Marching Powder will send the addict careening into the agony of withdrawal.
So what we really have is a Status Quo that now needs $2 trillion or more in "free money" injected into its fiefdoms and Elites just to keep from crashing. It would laughable if it wasn't so tragic: here is Ben Bernanke, shoving the needle of QE2 into the twitching half-dead addict and declaring that the zombied-out junkie is on the threshold of "self-sustaining" something or other.
The only cure for addiction is cold turkey. By all means let's keep the methadone and nicotine patch of food stamps flowing, but the Status Quo--the fiefdoms and Financial Elites--will have to go cold turkey.
What does that mean? It's simple: you get the same bloated budget you enjoyed in 2007: $2.7 trillion is still a lot of money. But it is $1.1 trillion less than the $3.8 trillion 2011 Federal budget. Even at $2.7 trillion, we'd be running a staggeringly large deficit of $400 billion.
"Self-sustaining growth" ranks right up there with "we had to destroy the village to save it" as a classic of propaganda gone sour.
- 14225 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -


.....yes....and then another 20% next year if needed. In two years we should be rid of the deficit and in a full fledged depression/collapse ......what is the alternative? Keep spending as we are? Eat another mushroom and go back to dreaming!
Your numbers are off.
2.16T (revenues) - 3.72T (Spending)= 1.56 trillion 2010 deficit.
Not sure where the 1.3T came from for 2010. Although 1.3T vs 1.56T, it's not a big difference anymore is it?
Thank you, Hugh. On this, we are of One Mind.
There is no need to "theorize" what might happen if Congress produced a balanced budget and The Fed put a halt to QE in June. I seriously doubt either will happen. There is ZERO chance of a balanced federal budget, and the Fed will likely keep a ZIRP for a while as it adds to its balance sheet.
100% FUBAR Ponzi economy.
Most of the masses listen to MSM and believe what they see and hear. And good points made here, many refuse to give up what is "rightfully theirs" and are not paying down debt. There are cracks in the facade and at some point the piper will be paid. You just cannot sustain any economy long term on debt. It has never been done in the history of man.
But as long as The Bernank keeps pushing the print button he can hold it up and consumers will buy @200.00 purses and $100 jeans because they deserve it.
Market not going to crack until all the pieces come together, and you have to admit, the last two weeks were a perfect excuse for it to dump for more than a few days, yet here we are, over 12,000. No shorts.
But, I do not sell my gold, silver and buy on every dip.
Agreed. And...you can eat gold and silver....although not very tasty without aperitifs.....
I sold half my gold in November (paper holdings, not my physical) to purchase 40+ more acres of arable land (now being leased and providing another strong revenue stream). Remember, the revolution will not be televised.
You make a very trenchant point, and that's that "holding" does very little, it's the transaction that provides the gains or losses.
PMs are a store of wealth. They are meaningless unless they ultimately are used to acquire something of more (potential) value. Actually, that's really their only use- as store until a transaction is made.
Don't confuse me with stating that one shouldn't hold PMs. I'm saying that you hold with the notion that you will use them in a future transaction, such as you did. Fortunately for me I've been able to acquire meaningful (well, hoping them to be) assets without going out of my holding pattern... keeping some powder dry is a good thing.
"But, I do not sell my gold, silver and buy on every dip."
yes, seems to be the new mantra as we wait for the definitive announcement on more QE (in whatever form).
"You just cannot sustain any economy long term on debt. It has never been done in the history of man."
Never in the history of man, has man had such a powerful propaganda machine as the television set. Not saying I disagree with your statement, just giving the reason that it has lasted this long. In the past it has never lasted long enough to get to the point we are at--which is light years beyond the point of no return. Average Joe thinks everything must be OK. If everything wasn't OK the TV would tell me so. We have freedom of the press, so of course if something was wrong they would let me know.
The official government debt now stands at 14 trillion, or around 50,000 USD for every U.S. man, woman and child.
Of course, if one takes into account unfunded liabilities, the real debt, as proven by the former comptroller of the United States, David M. Walker, is about 60 trillion USD.
Under that scenario, every U.S. man, woman and child would be indebted to the tune of $214,200 USD.
Of course, both of these figures rise dramatically once the model is broken out and it is explained that only about 40% of the U.S. population will shoulder all of the costs of the debt, so the former $50,000 becomes $116,000, and the latter $214,000 becomes $500,000, for every person that will actually be burdened with the debt.
And then, there's Laurence Kotlikoff, professor of economics at Boston College, who (credibly) argues that the debt is actually 202 trillion USD, and it can NEVER BE REPAID, under any circumstance:
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It: Laurence KotlikoffAug 11, 2010 ... Let's get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.
AdvertisementAdvertisements Sponsored Links Last update: 6:06 PM ET, Jan 25
People need to realize that in the US PRIVATE debt is GREATER than PUBLIC debt! (http://www.hanoverinvest.com/pdf/HIGComment101209.pdf - private debt was going ape-shit!)
^ Which is why the states will inevitably dissolve this federal government and form a new one. All federal liabilities and debt will be voided.
Also, unfortunately, across the board cuts are the only way Congress will move. It is the only way that we will stop hearing how this cut or that cut will rob the poor or steal from the elderly or take investment away from the children....blah, blah, blah ad naseum. It is all about pet projects and constituencies. Across the board is fair to all and can be argued as such.
http://apeakunderthehood.blogspot.com/2011/03/used-house-or-used-lexus.h...
Used House or Used Lexus
Good luck hedgers!
Since I cannot post to your blog without some sort of authentication I'll just dump my response here (though it's targeted at the only other comment [at this time] that your post has elicited):
@Eddie: I'm not saying that everyone should buy a house, or even that housing is a good investment, but that in the inflationary environment yet to come, housing will be a decent place to put your money.
Your assumption is that people HAVE money! One need only look at the labor market to see that it's on the down-slope. Less money is circulating because there IS less being spent. Yes, the BIG BOYS may have some stashes, but the little people, who would be doing the buying of real estate (the rich just sit back and rake in the $$s from the transactions, that's how the game has been set up), don't have IT ($$s). I don't believe that major investors, financials (or those controlled by/through them) have the stomach for real estate, especially given that they're sitting on so much of it already, and toxic it has been labeled: commercial real estate is the real big boys' game, and that game is dead in the water, which should tell everyone that the key driver is stagnant, or, as I'd proffer, in decline.
No, housing prices are going to be forced to follow reality, available income (read "jobs"). Follow employment trends to better understand the prevailing direction.
.
Fed's Fischer is letting the world know that QE is history. He said the FED is done and there will be no more accomodations forthcoming. Vote to end QE may be forthcoming as well, as it should be. He also said the debt is at a tipping point.......
Let's see if Fischer is being truthful, or does Bernanke own his ass.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Feds-Fisher-US-debt-situation-rb-204169924...
To balance US deficit is a child's game:
There you go---a balanced budget!
One of the reasons why I stopped reading CHS( and pay no attention to his so called solutions) is because he is a useful tool or a witting agent for the gang behind the Peterson Institute--one way or another they will attempt to balance the budget on the backs of Social Security payers.
There is it, the obvious. <sarc> But wait, wouldn't we lose hundreds of thousands of jobs in the industrial military complex, whatever would those scientists and engineers do? <sarc>
don't know if I got the sarcasm on and off symbols right.
Fine and dandy except...
This only stops the bleeding. We STILL owe a ton!
Jabbing the rich might sound fun, but, and it's been clearly pointed out (much to the dismay of myself and most others), it is They who are responsbile for the bulk of the purchases. If They stop spending then that means that the revenues, the ones that tend to support the non-elites, pretty much dries up.
Ready, shoot, aim... There just isn't any "solution."
Shame on you. You are another math challenged, manipulated idiot. The bottom supports the elites!!! Out of the tens of million cars sold every year, how many cars do elites buy~10,000, maybe. How about houses, how about Big Macs, how about TV, DVS, software etc.
Listen, junior, one shouldn't jump into a fight when one doesn't know who one is dealing with...
Volume does not translate into quality.
Tiffany outlook keeps luster despite Japan quakehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110321/bs_nm/us_tiffany
Their profits were up 14% in 2010! Yeah, right, go ahead and do some math, like what kind of margins all these rich fuckers' toys bring vs. that from the sales of Big Macs.
BMW Targets 2011 Profit Growth on Luxury Sales Amid Rising Output in Chinahttp://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-03-15/bmw-targets-2011-profit-growth-...
Before you proclaim an "a ha! I got ya" moment because much of this pertains to Asia/China, ask yourself this: do you think that these sales are going to the average wage earner in those locations? Again, these are "improving" sales. I suspect that improving sales for Big Macs might also be occurring there, but the argument at hand is whether it's the rich who are driving, and are responsible, for today's economic levels is the point.
Measure is in shareholder returns. Go ahead, prove that companies aimed at the lower markets are providing better returns than those aimed at the upper markets. (financials should be discounted, but I'd claim that they really are in it to serve the upper markets, while appearing to be there for the "masses"; there's also the "defense" industry, but no one in their right mind can argue that they're for retailing to Average Joe).
Watch those knees, people! Premature and sudden operation can be painful...
You must be joking. Another buffoon that believes in "trickle down" economics. Bullshit, the average Joe (who really makes the purchases that keep the economy going) did not have anything to do with MBS and derivatives markets that brought the banks to their knees.
This type of response is why we must admit that the debt is a fraud and crash the system NOW. The sooner we do, the sooner compensation will find its way to people who are actually worth a shit.
Let's not get emotionally stupid, OK?
I did not say I believed in trickle-down. Nor did I say I like the rich.
If there's spending going on and the little guy is massively in debt and unable to get loans (credit market seized), then who the fuck do you think is spending?
Try Google, it'll show exactly who.
Again, just because one doesn't like it it doesn't mean that it's wrong. Nor does it mean that the messenger supports the message. Capiche?
Now, folks, start wiping egg off your faces, you're starting to look a bit silly...
Thanks for playing!
Much easier said than done. You are forgetting that these rich people make the rules and are not likely to raise thier own taxes. Anything short of every citizen standing up at once with one voice and demanding it will not accomplish it. And even that might not work.
Childsplay????
Even if they raised the taxes on the rich that is a drop in the bucket here, that money would be gone in two months. They could raise income taxes to 90% and two years later they would be looking for 95%.
Europe has much higher taxation and is mostly broke too.
It is not a tax problem, it is a spending problem, largely a function of nature-the government will outspend their means regardless-the best solution is to cut the means as much as possible to keep the overspending to as little as possible.
The fact that in addition to being the usual incompent and inept force they usually are that they are also a massively corrupt co conspirator at this point also would be reduced.
And you believe that the private sector isn't just as fucked up? How to explain why the private sector's debt level is much higher than the public one? And that was before all this jacking of future generations' livelihoods... Just sayin...
The dope is being stomped on, there's not enough to go around. Either pay and try to get off on perpetually diminishing quality (private OR public sector), or get off the damn shit! Private sector addicts are barely discernible from public sector ones.
Not close.
Once get away from those corps sucking off the government gravy train tit,
the private sector is as cutthroat as ever.
Unlike the public sector and their $1000 toilet seats which has never, ever been efficient and now is as corrupt as ever. 7 federal agencies oversee the banks and yet not one is being held accountable for the egregious lending practices. The more beaurocrats created the less each is accountable.
A great Jefferson quote:
"We must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debt, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our calling and our creeds...[we will] have no time to think, no means of calling our miss-managers to account but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers... And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for[ another]... till the bulk of society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery... And the fore-horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression. "
get the big corps off the government tit and get back to everyone has to be competitive to survive and all citizens benefit.
Just look at healthcare, the existing insurance companies have erected insurmountable barriers to entry by corrupting government. Coupled with the state laws which they likewise helped to be enacted-just imagine how expensive cell service would be if every state had a different platform and get the idea.
This doesn't even count the massive resource that would be available to the private sector but isn't thanks to crowding out with the state and federal governments being the largest consumers, employers, borrowers, lenders, landlords, real property owners, parents to 50million people in the country.
In the most simplistic form if they weren't $14trillion in the hole that is $14trillion that would be available to others.
BTW the 100% tax on interest income called 0% rates on savings accounts is the rich paying higher taxes, the poor and middle class surely aren't the ones foregoing the trillions in interest earned.
Exactly. The more revenue collected, the more debt that revenue can support. For every dollar collected in new taxes, seven bucks will be borrowed. $2.2 Trillion in revenue currently supports $14 Trillion in debt, so would not $3 Trillion in revenue support $18 Trillion in debt? $4 Trillion support $25 Trillion? No amount of additional taxation will result in the reduction of federal debt. Period. It's not the plan.
Your $1 Trillion in suggested cuts is only two-thirds of the way there.
It's only half the way there if interest rates rise appreciably, forcing the cost of debt service upward.
Seems like a fair test. After all it excludes things like:
2011 Deduction Limit - $500000 (up from $250k previously). ... all qualifying capital expenditures with 100% Bonus Depreciation for the 2011 tax year.
The new energy efficient tax credit is only a 10% credit
Congress appropriated $300 million nationwide to support state rebate programs for residential ENERGY STAR®
Social Security tax break will increase 2011 income: 2 percent reduction wont be taxed.
Stopping the free flow of QE money would kill the PMs' paper short "purchases".
POG & POS would then sky!! and reveal the fiats for what they really are... ((ponzi))
In case people haven't already done so, I strongly recommend the recently posted Chris Martenson interview of John Rubino. Rubino pretty much states that it's all over, that there isn't any way to fix things... That's been my position for a WAY long time.
Article:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/straight-talk-john-rubino-damage-alread...
Without a kind not through contempt christian louboutin store, endurance and fight we can conquer the fate. A great man is great discount christian louboutin shoes sale, because he adversity coexistence with others cheap louboutins, others lost confidence, he has determined to achieve their goals louboutins cheap. There is no hopeless situation, only the man who falls into despair. When you feel sad or pain christian louboutin 80% off, you'd better learn something. Learning christian louboutin discount will make you invincible christian louboutin boots. In the world the most easy thing cheap christian louboutin pumps, delay the time the most easily discount louboutins. You think you can, you can christian louboutins for cheap. A believer develop strength, more than 99 men who christian louboutin pumps on sale are just interested. Each strenuously behind, there will be double reward. http://www.cheaplouboutinsstore.com/
Tomorrow is to appreciate in the world fastest a piece of land discount christian louboutins shoes, because it's full of hope cheap louboutins sales. Remember: Every day is the best day of the year. Happiness christian louboutin boots isn't because of possessing much but caring less. When disappointed not in sadness louboutins pumps sales, think about the days with laughter! To overcome the anxiety christian louboutin high heels and depression in life, you must learn to be your own master christian louboutin ankle boots. Put himself as a fool, you don't know, ask christian louboutin boots. You'll learn more. Aimless life is like christian louboutin wedges sailing without a compass. Learn to do anything to christian louboutin evening step-by-step, your may. The hope of tomorrow christian louboutin pumps, let us forget today's pain. http://www.saleslouboutin.com/