"Fiscal Cliff" Archives - the patient investor

February 26, 2018February 26, 2018

Richard Koo: Surviving in the Intellectually Bankrupt Monetary Policy Environment

Richard C. Koo, Chief Economist, Nomura Research Institute, at the ACATIS Value Konferenz 2016 in Frankfurt

Why QE doesn’t work.

I have the greatest respect for Richard Koo and his unconventional, balance-sheet-recession approach to economics.

It strikes me is that if central banks lower interest rates to stimulate borrowing and borrowing does not rise because borrowers are repaying debt to restore solvency, then it will backfire and hurt GDP. Households reliant on income from investments, especially in financial assets, will experience a significant loss of income from lower interest rates and will reduce their consumption accordingly. Falling consumption will cause a drop in GDP.

Investments in financial assets consist not only of household bank deposits and bonds, but also insurance sector and pension fund investments in financial assets (mainly bonds) which will raise insurance premiums and lower pensions as a result.

May 6, 2013

What happened to the liquidity trap?

Mark A Sadowski comments:

In November 2012 the CBO estimated that the maximum level employment effect would be a decrease of about 200,000 jobs, 640,000 jobs (80% 0f combined payroll and UI effect of 800,000 jobs lost) and 800,000 jobs for the high income tax increase, payroll tax increase, and sequester respectively: http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/attachments/11-08-12-FiscalTightening.pdf

In other words, according to these estimates, the sequester should already have decreased employment by over 500,000 jobs relative to baseline, and the tax increases should decrease employment over 400,000 relative to baseline by the next employment report at the latest.

What happened to the liquidity trap?

January 2, 2013

Why the fiscal cliff deal offers little to celebrate | Quartz

Gwynn Guilford writes:

Most immediately worrisome is that [lawmakers] ……let a cut in the payroll tax (which pays for social security) expire. Though doing so will close the 2013 budget deficit by some $126 billion, it means that 160 million Americans — including two-thirds of the lowest quintile of earners — will see around $600-$2,000 skimmed off their paychecks this year. That exacerbates a trend of falling wages in the past few years, and is particularly worrying given that consumer spending is a critical engine of the US economic recovery. In fact, Goldman Sachs’ Jan Hatzius expects that the expired payroll tax cut alone will drain 0.6% off 2013 GDP growth, in the form of reduced consumption.

January 2, 2013

Congress Passes Fiscal Cliff Deal – WSJ.com

WSJ writes that Congress passed a compromise bill to avert the fiscal cliff:

The bill …… was passed over opposition from conservative Republicans in the House who objected to the fact that it contained no long-term spending cuts of any significance. Both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives approved a bipartisan deal to block most impending tax increases and postpone spending cuts. The WSJ’s Mark Cranfield explains what the deal means for the U.S. deficit. The House voted 257-167, with 172 Democrats joining 85 Republicans in supporting the measure. Voting against the bill were 151 Republicans, and the GOP leadership split over the issue: House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) voted against it, while House Speaker John Boehner (R., Ohio) voted for it. Also supporting the bill was Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) the GOP vice presidential nominee who has been an ardent opponent of increasing taxes.

January 1, 2013

Disappointing fiscal cliff compromise

Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, Ky) brokered a deal that is likely to be approved by the Senate early Tuesday before being put to a vote in the House later in the day. The WSJ writes:

By waiting until the last minute, and reaching a deal on a much smaller scale than either side once envisioned, Washington also deferred many of its thorniest questions for perhaps as little as a few weeks. In late February of early March, the Treasury Department will run out of extraordinary measures to deal with the government’s borrowing limit — which it reached on Monday — and Congress would need to approve an increase. The delay in the spending cuts will run out about the same time. In effect, Congress has delayed the fiscal cliff by erecting a new and potentially more dangerous one.

Read more at The Fiscal Cliff – WSJ.com.

December 11, 2012

Republicans Send Fiscal Cliff Counteroffer To Obama – Business Insider

Brett LoGiurato reports that House Speaker John Boehner made a counter-offer in fiscal cliff negotiations. His spokesman Michael Steel issued a brief statement:

“We sent the White House a counter-offer that would achieve tax and entitlement reform to solve our looming debt crisis and create more American jobs. As the Speaker said today, we’re still waiting for the White House to identify what spending cuts the president is willing to make as part of the ‘balanced approach’ he promised the American people. The longer the White House slow-walks this process, the closer our economy gets to the fiscal cliff.”

via Republicans Send Fiscal Cliff Counteroffer To Obama – Business Insider.

December 3, 2012

‘Doomsday’ For The Fiscal Cliff? | ABC News

Republicans are considering a “Doomsday Plan” if fiscal cliff talks fail. The ABC’s Jon Karl reports:

It’s quite simple: House Republicans would allow a vote on extending the Bush middle class tax cuts (the bill passed in August by the Senate) and offer the president nothing more – no extension of the debt ceiling, nothing on unemployment, nothing on closing loopholes. Congress would recess for the holidays and the president would face a big battle early in the year over the debt ceiling.

Two senior Republican elected officials say this Doomsday Plan is becoming the most likely scenario. A top GOP House leadership aide confirms the plan is under consideration, but says Speaker Boehner has made no decision on whether to pursue it.

Under one variation of the plan, House Republicans would allow a vote on extending only the middle class tax cuts and Republicans, to express disapproval at the failure to extend all tax cuts, would vote “present” on the bill, allowing it to pass entirely on Democratic votes.

By doing this, Republicans avoid taking blame for tax increases on 98 percent of income tax payers. As one senior Republican in Congress told me, “You don’t take a hostage you aren’t willing to shoot.”

This is a time for mending bridges damaged during the election. The ability of the President to unify rather than polarize the two sides of the house will be tested in the next few weeks. Let us hope that he measures up.

via ‘Doomsday’ For The Fiscal Cliff? (The Note) – ABC News.

December 3, 2012

Fiscal Cliff Is Just a Speed Bump on the Road to a Real Crisis | International Liberty

Dan Mitchell writes in the New York Post:

A lot of people get upset about the national debt, which is somewhere between $11 trillion and $16 trillion, depending on whether you include money the government owes itself. Those are big numbers — but if you add up the amount of money that the government is promising to spend for entitlement programs in the future and compare that figure to the amount of revenue that the government projects it will collect for those programs, the cumulative shortfall is more than $100 trillion. And that’s after adjusting for inflation. Some politicians claim this huge, baked-into-the-cake expansion of government isn’t a problem, because we can raise taxes. But that’s exactly what Europe’s welfare states tried — and it didn’t work. Simply stated, even huge tax hikes won’t stem the flow of red ink in the long run if government keeps growing faster than the private economy. This is the fiscal problem that demands attention. Absent real entitlement reform, such as block-granting Medicaid to the states, the burden of government spending will consume ever-larger shares of our economic output with each passing year.

via Explaining in the New York Post that the Fiscal Cliff Is Just a Speed Bump on the Road to a Real Crisis « International Liberty.

December 2, 2012

Even without U.S. cliff, world economy teeters | Reuters

Pedro Nicolaci da Costa at Reuters writes:

In the United States, the economy faces growing challenges even without the ongoing political wrangling…….

The coming week brings a slew of reports expected to show the U.S. economy struggling. Data on Friday will likely show employment growth slowed to just 100,000 jobs last month from 171,000 in October, according to a Reuters poll of economists.

U.S. manufacturing data this week is also likely to suggest a fourth-quarter slowdown is at hand.

via Even without U.S. cliff, world economy teeters | Reuters.

November 16, 2012

Obama’s ‘Fairness’ Tax is Political, Not Fiscal

Eward Morrissey of the Fiscal Times points out the way toward resolving the fiscal cliff impasse:

Both parties want to reform the corporate and personal tax systems to eliminate complexity and provide stability and predictability. Rather than aim specifically at revenue, start by realizing the bipartisan goal of tax reform, which will boost investor confidence, and then address the spending that drives the deficits. That will be the only way to have a truly balanced long-term solution and a reliable increase in revenue, one that will keep America on a firm path to solvency…..

via Obama’s ‘Fairness’ Tax is Political, Not Fiscal.