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The Recession Spectator
Obama’s Double-Down Gamble
The White House has served notice that it will continue to apply both monetary and fiscal stimulus through the rest of this year if not longer, the $2 trillion yearly federal overruns be damned.
In Las Vegas casinos, gamblers at the blackjack tables are allowed to “double down.” After drawing their two cards they are allowed to double the size of their bet if they will take only one more card in their quest to get closer to 21 than the dealer. It is a high-risk bet that should be made only if the player holds a very strong hand.
Faced with an easily panicked Wall Street, a catastrophic oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, persistent unemployment, and increasing political backlash looming in the autumn congressional elections, President Barack Obama has made a double-down bet on the U.S. economy.
While America’s trading partners in Europe and Asia are attempting politically unpalatable and economically perilous efforts at fiscal retrenchment and social welfare cuts, the White House has served notice that it will continue to apply both monetary and fiscal stimulus through the rest of this year and possibly well into 2011 before it makes any serious effort to reduce its roughly $2 trillion yearly federal spending overruns.
The reasoning behind the gamble is somewhat startling. Obama has been persuaded by his main policy advisers at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that the American recession is over, and that in fact it ended in June 2009. Slight revivals in existing home sales, in new car purchases, and some modest inventory buildups are evidence enough to the officials that they need to keep their feet firmly pressed on the accelerator.
At the end of May, Larry Summers, head of Obama’s economic advisory council, in a major policy address to the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins, said he was “heartened by the fact that due in part to the strong fiscal actions taken through the Recovery Act, the American economy is growing and creating jobs once again. The combination of tax cuts, emergency support for the newly unemployed, fiscal support for states, and a range of catalyzing investments from infrastructure improvements to energy have played their intended role. The depression scenario that appeared a very real threat a year ago now appears remote. And by and large, forecasters debate the likely pace of recovery rather than the magnitude of double-dip risk.”
Now go back and read that sentence again. Better yet, go online to www.whitehouse.gov and pull up the entire Summers text to understand the full depths of his self-deception and estrangement from the reality overhanging this summer of discontent. It is as if this talented — no, brilliant — economic analyst has surveyed some mythical country and not here and now, where 80 percent of Americans who lost their jobs last year are still unemployed and those who have gone back to work have taken pay cuts, sacrificed benefits, and are now working hourly schedules that border on part-time. Coincidentally, the day after Summers spoke to the heavy thinkers at SAIS, the official federal government debt crossed over the $13 trillion line. That boosts the amount of debt as a percentage of our gross domestic product from 84 percent to 88 percent in one month as the GDP continues to fall while spending increases.
Summers hastened to reassure the credit markets that the Obama administration was concerned about the budget deficits and renewed the president’s pledge to cut the annual overrun in spending to a measly $500 billion in the next few years. Just not right now, please. But just so there was no misunderstanding, he emphasized he had little time for what he called “a largely sterile debate…about brakes versus accelerators or opening wallets versus tightening purse strings.” He means your wallets and Washington’s purse strings.
The windows on Summers’s limousine are not the only ones that are rose-tinted. The biggest U.S. corporations and Wall Street banks are enthusiastic supporters of the Obama plan for the “second stimulus” injection of $200 billion later this year, perhaps because they are the main beneficiaries. Two weeks before Summers’s speech, there was a cozy dinner in the White House state dining room where he, President Obama, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and other administration strategists met with 13 of the nation’s most senior manufacturing and bank CEOs to lay out the new rosy scenario and ask for support.
Among the favored guests were Jamie Dimon, head of JPMorgan Chase & Co.; James Owens of Caterpillar; Rex Tillerson of ExxonMobil; Ronald A. Williams of Aetna; and Patricia Woertz of Archer Daniels Midland. The guests were officers of the prestigious Business Council of the giants of industry and finance, and the dinner was a preview of the next night’s appearance at a black-tie dinner for the full 150 Council chiefs, where the president repeated the pitch and got a standing ovation.
In timely fashion, Summers’s policy pronouncement came the same day as the staff economists for many of the Business Council membership issued a revised economic forecast that had to try very hard to be upbeat. The group nudged its February prediction that U.S. gross domestic product would rise by 3.1 percent to a new forecast of 3.2 percent growth. The analysis also agreed that the U.S. recession ended last year and said, “The economy is in reasonably good shape as the recovery approaches its first anniversary,” but the economists conceded they were “extremely concerned about the large federal budget deficits going forward.”
But even at a 3.2 percent GDP gain, America is hardly out of the woods, and a closer look at the report’s data shows it is based on the overall jobless rate remaining near the current 9.9 percent mark. About the best gloss the business economists could put on the situation was “the U.S. economy is faring much better than Europe.” Hardly a ringing vote of confidence.
But even the business economists may be too optimistic. One has to wonder why Mr. Summers was so confident when he was provided with a very sobering analysis by no less than the economists of the New York Federal Reserve Bank just the week before. The central bank economists said the recovery, if indeed it is a recovery, would be lucky to get above 3 percentage points this year.
The New York Fed analysis should have been a splash of cold water at the White House. It notes that up until the 1990s, the U.S. economy tended to bounce back “relatively briskly from downturns.” In the eight quarters after reaching the low point in the cycle, the revival averaged about 5.5 percent in GDP growth after inflation. But the recessions of 1990-1991 and 2001 saw revivals of growth of only 2.9 percent of GDP on average.
Three factors have to be in place for the U.S. (or any other) economy to snap back from a recession, the Fed economists state: a high degree of slack in the economy, monetary policy that is poised to stimulate, and a firm overall trend growth of economic activity. Yet today, consumer prices are slumping because of weak demand, the Fed interest rate push is at zero, and broad levels of economic activity are tentative at best.
And things may be worse than we know. First, there is good reason to worry that the federal government faces a far greater deficit burden than most Washington officials will admit to. As troubling as the $13 trillion/88 percent of GDP burden is, Washington faces debt obligations far greater than that. If one applies the generally accepted accounting principles that any business has to follow, the longer-term liabilities of the American Social Security and Medicare health insurance schemes (whose trust funds currently are empty) balloon that debt overhang to $70.7 trillion, close to five times GDP.
To be sure, not all that debt is coming due tomorrow. But the federal debt overhang is only one part of the American government’s addiction to overspending. More than 30 of the 50 state governments are in severe deficit. Three-quarters of the nation’s major city governments have cut services and employment because of sharply reduced tax revenues. A recent report by Stanford University says the California state pension schemes for teachers and government workers may be in deficit by another half trillion dollars all by itself.
There is another blackjack phrase that comes to mind. It’s when that next card drawn to your hand takes you over 21. You are “busted.”
About the Author
James Srodes, an author and broadcaster, is a former Washington bureau chief for Forbes and Financial Worldmagazines. His latest book, On Dupont Circle: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Progressives Who Shaped Our World, is being published next week. His email address is srodesnews@msn.com.
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Ken (Old Texican)| 7.22.10 @ 12:31PM
NOVEMBER OR BUST!!!!!!!!!!!!!
JP| 7.22.10 @ 12:47PM
The President and his policymakers are quickly upping the ante. The day is drawing fast when the federal government will simply default on its financial obligations or print more money, continue to use quantitative easing and raise taxes.
This next fiscal year Medicaid obligations will outstrip defence. By 2015, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security will each top $1 trillion. Do the math; the GDP is somewhere between $11 trillion and $13 trillion. Add to these 3 giant entitlements the interest alone the Treasury must pay out in order to meet its obligations and one can see the federal outlays topping $4 trillion annually. And we haven't even added the rest of the federal budget ($3 trillion, but more like $4 trillion the way Obama and Congress are spending). That equates to $8 trillion annually being redistrubuted from the private to the public sector. And that's assuming the GDP doesn't contract.
John Schroy | 7.29.10 @ 2:30AM
An interesting aspect of the Great Depression was that throughout the 1930s, people were constantly predicting inflation, due to FDR's spendthrift polities. Instead, they got continued deflation.
There doesn't seem to be any doubt the Obama's policies are extremely inflationary. The question is, when will inflation hit?
PolishKnight| 7.22.10 @ 1:06PM
I remember Summers making a key flub at Harvard where he explained why women might not be as good at math as men. A woman attendant, predictably, fainted at the notion that women are different than men. No men required smelling salts in the men's restroom to come to, however.
Afterwards Summers apologized his heart out and spoke of throwing other men under the bus via gender preferences and afterwards, predictably, he was sacrificed anyway.
Apparently, he's learned his lesson and is ready to advocate whatever leftist dogma, regardless of it's support by the facts, he needs to put his name and Ivy League credibility on.
Dan Hirsch| 7.28.10 @ 9:17AM
...And he turned in his superior math skills!
Jack Kinch(1uncle)| 7.22.10 @ 1:45PM
These idiots in congress are spending money that our great grandchildren will be paying for just to make our lives better now. How selfish. We are living in the new normal. Suck it up. Some are selfish and want government to take care of them. It's not government it's your great grandchildren who will pay for you. These politicians are reaching into the future to buy your vote now.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 4:48PM
The "idiots" were the Republican Presidents that ran up the National Debt so high, that now, during a REAL emergency, y'all are freaked out about it. It's nothing, really. As soon as economy recovers, the tax revenue will come back and the crisis will wane. Then is the time to worry about fiscal discipline - something we should have done for the last 30 years ... now who was President then ? Hmmmm? Reagan, Bush I , and Bush II .. Clinton provided a surplus. Isn't that the real danger - going back to the Republican way of spending ... Borrow IT!
Tom Osterman| 7.28.10 @ 7:15PM
"As soon as economy recovers...?" And when is that in the foreseeable future? As for deficits, they've been run up under Democratic presidents as well; in fact, they started the business. Democrats only worry about the deficit when they can blame Republicans, as Purpleguy proves.
The budget will only be balanced when Fedzilla stops piling on new spending and really cuts spending, which will also mean abolishing a lot of Federal programs that liberals and the Left (and Purpleguy) hold dear.
"...the last 30 years...?" Try since the Depression.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 9:11PM
Interestingly, the Chairmen of Fedzilla in the last 30 years have been appointed by REPUBLICAN presidents and re-upped by Democrats... in any case, I'll go with what they know about economics and economic policy over your sorry retread right wing blather.
Check this out if you REALLY want to know where the National Debt came from and on who's watch, dittohead. It flies in the face of your oh so well known facts ...
http://zfacts.com/p/318.html
John II| 7.28.10 @ 10:23PM
Purp! Another unpleasant surprise! You're here again. You never show up for the really interesting posts--I mean, the stuff about morals and history and literature and philosophy and stuff.
Anyhow, I read your link as instructed. To quote your kindred spirit Associate Professor Biden when he was asked by an alert journalist about Professor Obama's de facto Marxism: "You're kidding, aren't you?"
Pat Fields | 7.22.10 @ 1:48PM
The political orientation of the people in the central bank will have no effect on its ultimate demise. The virtual 'money' system itself is self-destructive by design.
'Money' is issued at compounding interest ... so, where must the interest come from? Only from further issuance of 'money' ... at compounding interest!
Each is a reciprocal generator of the other and it goes on until the interest service can no longer be substantiated by surplus productivity.
There has been a frenetic scramble building for decades now as the Politicos and Banksters have been scurrying around trying desparately to figure out where the exit hatch is. There's only one. A return to specie money.
Since the purchasing power of the Fed's banknotes has depreciated 97% from their inception, the correct, equitable conversion is to a 10 gram copper piece. Converting all banknotes to these 'coppers' will result in a seamless transition in day to day life as they'd trade on a one for one basis.
The critical feature will be a one time cost of issue without any reciprocal interest generation tied to it, so we can get back to the RATIONAL economics that served humanity just fine for four thousand years.
Dan Hirsch| 7.28.10 @ 9:33AM
Dear Pat;
"compounding" is nothing more insidious than simple math.
Compound interest does not come from thin air, it is the result of repeatedly taking an action: If I put $100 in a bank (Optimist, me!) and they pay me 5% interest on it every year, after the first year, I'll have $105. In the second year they pay me 5% on the $105, I'll have $110.25, the 25 cents is the interest on the $5 interest they paid me at the end of the first year. That's the compounding. It ain't magic, it ain't a conspiracy, and it is math.
Now why would the bank do this? Because they have found a business that will pay them 10% interest on your $100, compounded and all, because they can make 20% net profit from your $100 by spending it to make their widgets or pencils and selling them for $120. Voila! That's how this works.
If you're reading somebody that's saying compounding of interest is the problem, yo can probably do better. Milton Friedman looks way harder than he reads...
Nolite me conculcare!
Compounding is when after the second year they pay me interest on not just my initial deposit but also on the interest they paid me last year. So I receive every yearorrow $1,000 from you and agree to give you $10 for each $1000 I owe you each month and do not pay anything, I will owe you more than and more than I have borrowed from you for each week I owe it to you, after a while
Dan Hirsch| 7.28.10 @ 9:35AM
I hope you enjoy the $100 I gave you in my third paragraph. Please also disregard the paragraph of gibberish at the end - mine own editing foul up.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 4:52PM
That's just simple compounding - by the year. You want compounding like the banks charge you ... by the day!
Dan Hirsch| 7.28.10 @ 11:11PM
Actually, the math works out so that even if you compound the interest instantaneously, i.e. every second, every hundredth of a second, every millionth of a second, the compounding interest does not accumulate significantly faster than a daily compounding.
I say again, this is a result of mathematics, not some diabolical scheme. It should be no more upsetting than things falling Down, nor the sun rising in the East.
Those who would tell you otherwise are trying to confuse things - seek commonsense, read Milton Friedman, not those seeking to frighten you into buying their stock, commodity, annuity.
JAWilson| 7.28.10 @ 7:51AM
Chase (Dimon) is offering in Chicago a business line of credit to small businesses that would lower the interest rate a point for every new employee you hire. The problem is that Chase really doesn't give a poop for small business. If you have ten million dollars, they are there for you. If you have one hundred thousand dollars, don't get your hopes up. Hows that for drinking the Obama coolade, Jamie?
martin j smith| 7.28.10 @ 8:04AM
Wall Street and other Big Businesses DO NOT GIVE A DAMN ABOUT THIS COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then too folks life Warren Buffett,Micheal Bloomberg and others DO NOT CARE ABOUT THIS COUNTRY!!!!!!!!!!!
They care about one thing: Their own thriving and profit making at our expense. Thus, I think that a certain level of populism ( anti-Wealthy such as the crony capitalists and the Left big shots is just as valid as those who cry against the " Rich Republicans ". Its a bi-partisan thing don't you know !!!!!!!!!!
Those who need help are small to mid size businesses, and the working individual citizen and their families. Those the the producers. They
are the pruducers of this nation. Let me also add that I spit on Big Union as well..
Dan Hirsch| 7.28.10 @ 9:39AM
martin j;
Good call on the Chase marketing malarkey! Ranks up there with BP's attempted re-branding as "Beyond Petroleum."
Chase should publish their "number of jobs saved or created." It would have more meaning than the Democrats' 'saved or created' stats...
It will be a small, small number...
Is this another "Free beer tomorrow" promotion?
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 5:01PM
Oh, oh - you don't like the free enterprise, no regulation environment that let them run wild? You're sounding like a Democrat - I agree with you by the way, except for the Union spitting. We have benefits in this country ONLY because the Unions made it happen. And, to compete for talent, benefits became a necessary recruiting tool for companies. Companies didn't just GIVE them away with their good heart!
Dan Hirsch| 7.28.10 @ 11:15PM
BONEHEAD!!!
Just because some marketing puke says it, does not make it so.
The most important ingredient in a free market is intelligent, thoughtful consumers who look hard and see through the bologna (baloney) and refuse to be fooled.
Do not let the government tell you that they will protect you - they won't.
Idiot PURPLE GUY wants to havesome one protect you. No one can look out for your interests better than you. If you delegate this responsibility to the government, they will OWN you. It's your freedom, spend it as you will.
Melvin| 7.28.10 @ 9:29AM
Face it people, we're lab rats for one helluva Progressive Socioeconomic experiment to that has been determined by Obama and his experts that Central Planning can work in our modern society, hence all the czars and academics that do Obama's thinking for him.
Most of us already know that no matter how hard the Progressive Elitists try to make crap into gold it ain't goin to work.
They brand us with cutesy Progressive Elitist catch phrases , "They just don' know, or they cannot grasp the complexity of the legislation." Then if they really get pissed, they roll out the usual time tested phrases of, "Nazi's, racists, and homophobes."
People are labeling Obama a Socialist when looking at him and his policies don't reflect Socialism.
Conservatives want a smaller less intrusive government, and have no faith in governmental central planning, Socialists want to use the power of government to take from those who have and distribute it to the have nots, but Progressives have a firm believe in governmental central planning, staff by legions of experts(academia) to do the masses thinking for them.
Next question that probably arises is, since the Progressives are doing all the thinking for the masses, what are the masses supposed to be doing in the meantime? I guess we are supposed to stand there with mouths agape hanging on every word the roils out of the experts (Academia) mouths like some starry eyed college Freshman.
There is one major problem with this Progressive plan. There are too many of us out here that have the ability and desire to think for ourselves, and this poses the greatest challenge to the Progressive Elitist.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 5:06PM
He isn't Central planning you idiot.
Even if he was, how do you explain the success of China, Inc., growing by leaps and bounds, which clearly is central planned? Might they have a better system?
John II| 7.28.10 @ 10:14PM
Not unless you think it's a cool idea to run an extensive gulag for dissidents, Purp. But I suppose you think it's a good idea. It's certainly a well-established lefty idea.
martin j smith| 7.28.10 @ 11:03AM
Here is the problem: Being a politician ( which is not Public service ) means enriching ones own pot and having various levels of power. Here is good example as it applies to Polticians and financial curruption : John K. of the State of Mass. He was trying to rip off his own state. That means his supposed own people of owed tax money. This the same guy and same party that will raise taxes on everyone else. Among other things what has to come out and get thru to as many American vo0ters as possible is this: Those folks you voted for and who want to dump on you, this is who they really are . Do you really want such a person in office to skrew with your life ?
John K is only a "case study" a symbol of the problem. A lot of Democrat ( Socialists ) and Mianstream republicans ( Cronys of Socialists )
need exposure. BHO let the cat out of the bag early when SEIU sent goons to AIG and other company CEO's. Its time to give the Sovcialists and their friends and allies a taste of their own medicine.
RCV| 7.28.10 @ 4:33PM
Judging from your post, pretty stupid indeed.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 5:08PM
I love it .. concise, crisp retort of his total bs...
JimE| 7.28.10 @ 9:12PM
RCV and purpleasswipe, two unemployable liberal useful idiots.
Steve A| 7.28.10 @ 1:25PM
You people are evil. Barak is trying to make the US a better place for everyone & people like those posting here are standing in the way. You are mean to old people & small animals & want to destroy the Earth with your SUV. If Michelle Obama tells you to skip desert, you had better listen. When Barak tells you to pay more taxes, he has your best interests in mind. He is smarter than you so get over it.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 5:11PM
Not evil, just ignorant.
JimE| 7.28.10 @ 9:13PM
Steve do like purpleasswipe, get on your knees and beg to eat the bitter fruit of barack's anus.
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 4:19PM
Very cute Blackjack analogy - but it doesn't work. The government owns the cards, so will always get another card. The so-called fiscal crisis is the latest bogieman from the right wing. Sure we have to get the house in order - but we didn't with Reagan. We didn't with Papa Bush. We did some with Clinton. And, of course we blew the lid off with Baby Bush. Now, in the worst economic climate in 70 years, you crow about the debt ... raise your taxes - you've been riding high for 30 years, while Republicans spent and borrowed. It wasn't the Democrats and you should be ashamed of yourselves for not paying your way. But I'm sure you're not.
John II| 7.28.10 @ 10:17PM
"We did some with Clinton."
Er . . . does "we" include the Republican Congress who actually controlled the purse-strings during Associate Professor Clinton's grope-regime?
Purpleguy| 7.28.10 @ 4:41PM
"The reasoning behind the gamble is somewhat startling. Obama has been persuaded by his main policy advisers at the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that the American recession is over, and that in fact it ended in June 2009. Slight revivals in existing home sales, in new car purchases, and some modest inventory buildups are evidence enough to the officials that they need to keep their feet firmly pressed on the accelerator. " - your comment is contradictory... if the Recession is over, they wouldn't push on the accelerator ... you got it backwards.
they are trying to avoid what happened in the '30's when Roosevelt saw progress in beating the Depression in '33 and '34 and then pulled back on spending in '35 - but it backfired and created the mini-Depression in 1937-1939.
But, of course, your goal is to provide scare tactics to scare the bejesus out of everyone. What's the worst that could happen? The government goes bankrupt? And defaults on the bonds it owes ? Oops - no more debt. Gone. Except that won't happen. We can print our own money as needed. Now, after that, maybe you can calm down.
If you really want to place blame on the right culprits look back at the run-up of deficits and National Debt to GDP % starting with Reagan. Prior to Reagan, the ratio was 35% .. after Reagan to Bush II, we were at 80% of National Debt to GDP. Since there was surplus under Clinton, all the deficits came from Republicans that ran up the debt. I cannot help but think this is just political rhetoric to find a campaign issue for Republicans.
Oh, and one last comment - yep, sure, as if the heads of major Corporations are shills with their hands out - instead of common sense, powerful people that see the value in the President's policies and plans. You tout more baloney to feed the low-information voter.
John II| 7.28.10 @ 10:53PM
"We can print our own money as needed."
Preferably with portraits of Professor Obama on every denomination, eh Purp?
I have even a better idea. The government should issue everyone a printing press so we can ALL print our own money as needed!
I'd have portraits of Groucho Marx on my bills, Purp. What about you?
Purpleguy| 7.29.10 @ 10:58AM
Typical, you missed the whole point, and focused only on what you can play with, because you can't answer the rest of the story ... did you learn your editing skills from Fixed News?
John II| 7.29.10 @ 11:59AM
You need a period after "Typical," Purp, to sustain your lofty pose--although a mark of ellipsis might work even better, projecting less primness and a more dignified exasperation.
Free rhetorical advice always available to trollsters.
JimE| 7.28.10 @ 9:15PM
Purpleasswipe,
Another nice KOS post you moron. You really are a shithead.
Purpleguy| 7.29.10 @ 10:59AM
Yep, name-calling, the sure sign of the weak mind ... facts have a way of hurting, don't they?
John II| 7.29.10 @ 12:05PM
"Yep, name-calling, the sure sign of the weak mind"
Whoa. Hold it, Purp. You don't want to say that, unless you really intend to accuse yourself in the same breath of being feeble-minded.
Free logic lessons always available with tips on the next race. Get your tootsie-frootsie ice-a cream!
Watson| 7.28.10 @ 9:23PM
To quote the immortal economist Roy Orbison, 'It's Over".
proreason| 8.1.10 @ 8:51PM
What gamble?
When will you guys get it through your heads that the criminals in the White House aren't gambling. They aren't playing. They aren't "trying things out". They aren't "fishing for what works".
They are deliberately and methodically doing those things which they have carefully planned out to destroy the USA as we know it, and replace it with a totalitrian regime, ruled by them, (and in their minds) forever.