Tuesday, September 15, 2009

The Insanity of the Left

The New America Foundation in my opinion is an extreme left wing think tank supported by what one would surmise are the usual suspects. In a recent article by one Mr. Hayes they advocate for massive inflation to reduce the national debt. And we have shown before the national debt as a percent of GDP is rapidly approaching 100% and more. Hayes recommends that we permit massive inflation to deal with this debt. For those of us who lived through the inflation of Mr Carter, one of the worst presidents in the history of the world, we saw what that would do. I bought my home in New Jersey in 1980 with an 18.5% interest on the mortgage. It would have been cheaper on my Visa at the time! Do we want that.

First, I suspect this is part of the young left's program of eliminating the older folks. That's one way to solve the health care problem, get rid of those who will most likely die soon and cost money. For inflation will destroy all retirement savings which most likely are now in fixed income accounts.

Hayes states:

"Given that consumption makes up over 70 percent of the U.S. economy, the most worrying part of this huge debt burden is that of the household sector. In 1981, household debt as a percentage of GDP was 48 percent, in 1996 66 percent, and by 2009 it was nearly 97 percent. The last time the household debt to GDP ratio was near 1:1 was 1929. The average household credit card debt is $8,329. Undergraduates leave college with, on average, $27,803 in debt. One in four households is "underwater" on their mortgages, meaning they have negative equity.

It is not just American households that are in trouble. Corporate debt, particularly financial sector debt, has ballooned over the past several decades. In 1981, financial sector debt was just 22 percent of GDP; in 1996, it had climbed to 61 percent, and then exploded during the bubbles years to reach 120 percent of GDP in 2009. "

So we are fixing those younger folks who played the housing market at the expense of the older folks who have paid off their homes. Hayes is in my opinion one of the most evil humans I have seen if this is what he wants. He even makes Maureen Dowd appear angelic! And that is no mean accomplishment.

Hayes end his diabolical article by stating:

"Historically, this approach has been favored by inflation hawks, who feel that it would serve as a control on the temptation for the Fed to cut rates to spur economic growth, or to allow recovery to go on too long raising prices too much. In the context of promoting inflation, it would be used as a kind of check against the fears of spiraling inflation that a sustained rise in the price level might bring about. If global investors come to credibly believe the target, even if the target is 5 percent, then it will reduce speculation in commodities and gold and avoid a rush away from bonds. For investors can price a predictable rate of inflation into the futures markets now, creating stable prices, rather than rushing to place bets that inflation will go to 10 or 12 percent. (Some of those bets are likely to be placed regardless.)

Through an amazing historical coincidence, fate has put a man who studied the Great Depression at the helm of the Fed as we work through the greatest financial disaster since that time. Bernanke relied on his scholarship of that period to avoid that era's mistakes, injecting massive amounts of liquidity into the market with a variety of unorthodox and creative gambits. Now, he can help us work our way out of our debt overhang, and facilitate the creation of a new, more equitable, more robust economy by marshaling his other area of expertise.

Inflation now."

Inflation destroys an economy. It makes investment uncertain, it reduces entrepreneurial investment, it destroys assets, and frankly it just makes costs rise. It will destroy the balance of trade, drive up interest rates for a long period, and combine that with the needed tax increases it will destroy the country. Other than that Mrs. Lincoln what did you think of the play?