Tag Archives: Carmen Reinhart

Q: Don't laugh at me, but what is a deficit? A: It's actually not a dumb question. Here's why.

Why are so many politicians around the world declaring that the debt crisis is "over" when debt-to-GDP ratios all over the planet continue to skyrocket? The global economy has never seen anything like the sovereign debt bubble that we are experiencing today. This insanity will continue until a day of reckoning arrives and the system implodes. Nobody knows exactly when that moment will be reached, but without a doubt it is coming. Are you ready? Words: 1270

One of the things that's being lost in the welter of rhetoric around the debt crises of sovereign nations is that these are not normal debtors, and government debt is not the same as personal debt. If you or I are in debt we are obliged to fulfil the terms of our repayment obligations or to go bankrupt or to pretend to die and go off and live on the life insurance. A country in the same situation has a range of other measures available to it...[Let's explore their options and what their implications would be for the country and its citizens.] Words: 1145

Even though the U.S. has managed to avert a debt crisis and perhaps a ratings downgrade, there remains a stain on our reputation, a scarlet “A” for budgetary “Abuse,” that will not disappear. The whole world was watching, and what they saw was a dysfunctional government taking its country to the financial precipice and backing off at the very last moment. [That being said, what options does the U.S. government have to reduce/eliminate its current $10 trillion of outstanding Treasury debt and an unfathomable $66 trillion of future liabilities? I have identified 4 likely courses of action all of which will lower the standard of living of every American.] Words: 1374

The National Inflation Association (NIA) has just posted an article* which makes a number of interesting arguments for the advent of hyperinflation and, while I agree with the conclusion that we could potentially face such an event, I see it as just one of a few possible outcomes. Let me comment on the specific points in the NIA article. Words: 1666

The U.S. caused the 1930s deflationary depression and is again the cause of the current contraction. Although similarities exist between the two, the differences between them insure a far more consequential outcome today than in the 1930s. [Indeed, the world] now finds itself on the edge of a growing deflationary sinkhole created by the sequential collapse of two large U.S. bubbles, the dot.com and U.S. real estate bubbles. Words: 1549

It is clearly evident that America's debt picture is truly astronomical and, like the situation with Greece, the debt cannot, and never will, be repaid. Indeed, any way you look at it, the consequences for the United States, let alone the many other haunted economies, are grim, dismal - even disastrous. Words: 1166

With all the attention being focused on whether or not there will be a sustainable recovery in 2010, the potential for a wave of sovereign-debt crises following the wake of the global recession has just recently started to appear on people's radar screens - and such a wave should not be surprising. Words: 2541