NC Renegades

While it is easy and often enjoyable to distract oneself with daily drudgery such as who will bomb whom (if not so enjoyable for those on the receiving end of said bombs), the key word in the sentence is just one: “distract” and as Kyle Bass pointed out correctly, the best, and most “economy-boosting” of all distractions ends up with the proverbial red button being pushed. Sadly, with an economy which Boston University’s Larry Kotlikoff defines as “arguably in worst fiscal shape than any other developed country“, there is much to be distrated by and is why we correctly predicted in July that the Syrian false flag event is only weeks or months away (turned out to be precisely one month). So for those who have no desire to prove the axiom that ignorance is bliss, or to have their heads stuck in the sand, here is a must read interview between Goldman’s Hugo Scott-Gall and the iconoclast economist who, in a vast minority, calls it like it is.

The highlights:

• I estimate the US fiscal gap at US$200 tn, 17 times the reported US$12 tn in official debt in the hands of the public. And this incorporates this year’s tax increases and spending sequestration. What would it take to come up with US$200 tn in present value? The answer is tax hikes or spending cuts, or a combination of the two, amounting to 10 percent of GDP, starting immediately and continuing indefinitely. To do so via spending cuts, alone, would require an immediate and permanent 36% cut in all non-interest spending. To do so via tax hikes, alone, would need an immediate and permanent 55% increase in all federal taxes. Hence, a description of the fiscal adjustments made over the last year could be “too little too late.” In terms of generational accounting, were we to leave our kids and future descendants to cover the entire fiscal gap, they’d face tax rates over their lifetimes around twice as high as those we face.
• The US is arguably in worst fiscal shape than any other developed country. But Greece, the UK, and Japan are close runner ups. As mentioned, our fiscal gap is 10% of the present value of our future GDP. In Germany it’s around 5%, while Canada, Australia and New Zealand are close to zero. Even Italy’s long-term fiscal gap is just half of the US’s, yet Italian government bonds sell at a much lower price than US government bonds simply because people don’t understand the pension reforms that Italy has rolled out or that Italy has much better control of its healthcare spending.
• Our country is broke. It’s not broke in 50 years or 30 years or 10 years. It’s broke today. Six decades of take as you go has led us to a precipice. That’s why almost the entire economics profession is talking as one at www.theinformact.org. Economists from all political persuasions are collectively sending our government a warning about what is, effectively, a nuclear economic bomb. I’ve been around economics for a long time. I’ve never seen such a strong response to a proposed Congressional bill. This is the profession sending a statement to the President and Congress that’s not unlike the warning physicists sent via Einstein to Roosevelt about the bomb.

And with that, here is the full interview:

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