And David Stockman Says ~
Now Comes An Election Crisis On Top Of A
Fiscal And Financial Disaster…Get
Informed, Focused, and Prepared. The Time
of Reckoning Has Commenced!
Dear Reader,
America is tumbling from the frying pan right into the fire. An election choice that consists of Trump versus Harris is all the proof you need.
And now with Robert Kennedy forming a Unity Ticket with Trump and bringing his following of independents and disaffected Republicans and Democrats into the GOP column in November, the outcome is going to be excruciatingly close. That’s because the entire Media Combine (CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times and the Washington Post) is in the tank for Harris and the Dems, and will pull out all the stops to vilify Kennedy-Trump and swamp the electorate in a miasma of fear and lies.
Accordingly, the election may not only come down to the wire in the wee morning hours of November 6th but might well remain unresolved and contested for days and even weeks. If we know anything about the Dem electoral machines in the key swing states, it is that they will do everything possible to stuff the ballot boxes with dubious mail-in votes, while the Donald is not about to take a hairline defeat laying down for the second time in a row.
Either a hairline victory for one of the two UniParty candidates or a prolonged contested ordeal in the Electoral College would throw American governance into an unprecedented crisis. The underlying economic upheaval that is now brewing, therefore, could be compounded enormously by a political crisis that would leave a huge cloud of uncertainty hanging over the financial markets and main street economy alike.
Moreover, regardless of whether Trump or Harris scratches out an eventual victory, a thundering fiscal and financial crisis is most surely just around the corner.
That’s because both UniParty candidates want to shovel even more borrowed money into the bloated Warfare State and neither wants to save a dime from the heart of the Welfare State---the $36 trillion cost of the depleted Social Security and Medicare trust funds over the next decade.
So, when the public debt crosses the $36 trillion mark in the next few weeks, it will be
accurate to say that you haven’t seen nothing yet. We will be at the $40 trillion debt
mark sometime in 2025 and, according to CBO’s latest optimistic budget forecast, the
debt will exceed $60 trillion by the early 2030s.
Unfortunately, it is off to the races thereafter. Under the fiscal policies of the UniParty,
which are fully embraced by both Trump and Harris, the public debt will reach $150
trillion and 166% of GDP by mid-century.
Needless to say, figures of those stunning magnitudes imply Roman Empire style
financial ruin. Even the madcap money-printers at the Fed could not possibly buy
enough bonds and monetize enough of the public debt to enable Uncle Sam to borrow
another $100 trillion over the next quarter-century.
Accordingly, what lies ahead is the most difficult stretch of economic and financial
turmoil that the nation has seen since the 1930s at least, and likely ever in its history.
After all, with the cost of living up 30% under the Trump/Biden administrations since
January 2017 and the CPI stuck in the 3-4% increase zone, the Fed can’t come to the
rescue by scooping up $120 billion of bonds per month like it did during the heyday of
QE.
That means, of course, that the massive flow of red ink ahead will have to be financed
the honest way by tapping available private savings. Unfortunately, however, the US
savings rate has plunged to rock bottom levels, meaning that Uncle Sam’s massive
presence in the bond pits will force interest rates steadily higher, crowding out private
investment in the process.
In turn, this will mean staggering increases in Federal debt service---the cost of which
has already erupted from about $300 billion annually a few years back to $1 trillion at
present. But there is now no prospect that the weighted average cost of US Treasury
bills, notes and bonds could drop below the current 5% level during the balance of this
decade. And if we actually get a hung jury political crisis in the Electoral College,
Treasury yields could shoot the moon
Either way, by the early 2030s the Federal interest tab alone will reach a staggering $3 trillion
per year. At a minimum. And that’s more than the current budget for defense, Social
Security, Medicare, Medicaid and Food Stamps combined!
At the same time, total private debt now totals more than $61 trillion, meaning that the
carry cost of the current massive household borrowings ($20 trillion), business debt
($21 trillion) and financial sector borrowings ($20 trillion) will soar in the years ahead.
The cheap debt issued by these sectors during the last decade will relentlessly roll-over
into the far higher interest rate borrowings, if it can be refinanced at all.
In turn, rising interest rates and over-leveraged business and household balance
sheets will weigh heavily on investment, productivity, jobs and incomes in the private
sector. Accordingly, America is not going to “grow” its way out of the $100 trillion of
public and private debt that weighs heavily on the economy at present.
There is no mystery, of course, as to where this fiscal and economic disaster came from.
Both Wall Street and Washington went off the deep end during the 2020-2021
pandemic period—spending, borrowing, printing, and speculating like never before in
history.
That we are now reaping the whirlwind should not be surprising. Just recall the
staggering magnitudes of the fiscal and monetary madness that erupted during the 365
days after March 2020.
On the fiscal front, Congress enacted $6.6 trillion of Covid-Lockdown bailouts and
stimmies virtually sight unseen. That figure was 7.5X the actual $800 billion loss of
GDP during the same period. It was also equivalent to $49,000 for every single
household in America.
Likewise, the Fed’s balance sheet soared from an already bloated $3.8 trillion in the fall
of 2019 to a peak of $9.0 trillion a few months ago.
Yet, how do you even comprehend that $5.2 trillion of central bank balance sheet
expansion? After all, what it actually measures is the cumulative gobs of new fiat credits
being printed day-in-and-day-out.
106 Years of Money-Printing Replicated In Mere Months…
Still, here’s one powerful metric that our mad-money printers in Washington surely
didn’t notice as they ran the Fed’s printing presses red hot. To wit, the Fed’s balance
sheet crossed the $5.2 trillion mark for the very first time in history on March 25, 2020.
That’s right. It took the Fed 106 years from the day it opened its doors for business in
1914 to reach the $5.2 trillion mark. And then it nearly replicated that figure in a matter
of months.
Inflation should be no shock to anyone!
Is it any wonder, then, that we have had rampant inflation? That is, massive bubbles in
the stock, bond, real estate, crypto, and other risk asset markets, followed by the highest
consumer inflation rates in 40 years.
And that these inflationary forces have now become deeply embedded in the economy,
with unit labor costs up nearly 17% in the last four years alone. That’s the highest rate of
gain since the early 1980s.
Needless to say, this is what happens when you monetize nearly 100% of Washington’s
explosion of borrowing and spending. But the laws of sound money, fiscal rectitude, and
economic gravity can’t be defied indefinitely.
It was always ordained, therefore, that there would be a time of painful reckoning. And
that time has now arrived.
50 years of experience is ready to guide you through this
mess…
?
Inside the Contra Corner newsletter, we dissect the headlines and hot spots of the day
from a fiercely independent vantage point based on 50 years of experience on both
ends of the Acela Corridor: As a US Congressman, President Reagan’s budget director,
Wall Street investment banker, original partner of the Blackstone Group, private equity
investor and best-selling author.
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