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Posts Tagged ‘fiscal cliff’

After Fiscal Cliff…The Debt Cliff

January 4th, 2013 Comments off

The patchwork, “kick the can down the road” last-minute measure enacted by Congress to avoid its own creation, the so-called “fiscal cliff,” has predictably sent bourses across the globe swooning for the stars. However, many excellent economists have pointed out that this deal is a meaningless diversion. In two months,  America’s constipated political establishment will again confront the debt cliff, as it did once before, in 2011. All the signs point to a major battle-royal over extending the debt ceiling, and the spending cuts and/or tax increases that will be tied in with the deal.

It is often said that watching legislation being made in Washington DC is like watching sausage being fabricated at a meat-packing plant. With the U.S. economy only being kept on supposedly tepid GDP growth  through trillion dollar annual deficits, facilitated by the Federal Reserve’s ill-disguised monetization of the debt, any partisan wrangling over the debt cliff (a likely scenario,) will likely impose severe repercussions on the global economy.

 

 

 

 

                 

 

 

 

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

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U.S. Economy Held Hostage to Fiscal Cliff Shenanigans

December 22nd, 2012 Comments off

The so-called fiscal cliff, a creation of Washington politicians, means that a tsunami of tax increases and spending cuts will batter the American economy, due to, among other things, the expiration of the Bush tax cuts. As the United States is still coping with a severe economic  crisis, and depends on structural mega-deficits to keep its economy afloat, the fiscal cliff threatens to derail for what passes for an economic recovery-one that is feeble at best.

The hope of forestalling a major fiscal drag on a weak American economy is a compromise involving increased revenue generation combined with selective spending cuts. But the Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, and the Democrats, who control the White House and the Senate, thus far are unable to compromise. Thus, global markets watch in stupefied wonder as the American political establishment morphs into a circular firing squad, as witnessed with the latest shenanigan.

House speaker John Boehner boasted that his GOP caucus would pass his so-called “Plan B,” which offered feeble tax increases along with far more massive social spending cuts, while leaving military spending increases intact. However, even a token tax increase limited to only those earning more than one million dollars per annum, was more than the Tea Party stalwarts of the GOP could stomach. Instead of a vote, Boehner embarrassingly withdrew his own “Plan B,” and in the process turned what passes for the modern-day Republican Party into a laughing stock. Meanwhile, America’s creditors watch nervously, as the political games in Washington continue undiminished, while thoughtful economic policy takes a back seat to ideological priorities.

Amid tepid economic growth that can only be maintained by massive  fiscal deficits, the political establishment in Washington DC, especially within the GOP, is looking increasingly dysfunctional to a world in which  America’s economic dominance is likely to be surpassed by the new emerging economic giants, China and India, perhaps within the next 10-20 years. Unless a moment of sanity can prevail in Washington, whereby economic policy is crafted by real economists instead of fringe ideological movements, the fiscal cliff that will ensue will contribute significantly towards the permanent economic decline of the United States.

 

                 

 

 

 

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

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Greece Bailout Crisis a Warning for U.S. Politicians Facing the Nation’s Fiscal Cliff

November 22nd, 2012 Comments off

At their most recent meeting, the finance ministers representing the 17 countries that comprise the Eurozone, along with the IMF (International Monetary Fund) and ECB (European Central Bank), have thus far failed to decide on releasing the next tranche of bailout funds to insolvent Greece. Without the bailout money being released, Athens is fiscally up the creek, without a paddle.

“Greece has done what it had to and what it had committed to doing. Our partners, along with the IMF, also must do what they have undertaken.” an increasingly desperate Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras pleaded.

The austerity measures enacted by Greece have imploded the economy, now entrapped in a frightful economic depression. The debris of the Greek economy has smashed social cohesion and political stability, witnessed by the sharp rise in popularity of the Fascist and neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party, which has promised economic salvation through bashing the immigrants they claim are the cause of the economic woes in Greece.

It is looking increasingly likely that the repeated bailouts at the expense of Eurozone taxpayers, especially from Germany, of the insolvent Greek state will run their course sometime in 2013. The odds that Greece will default on its vast and unsustainable public debt, prompting it to leave or be expelled from the Eurozone, are growing.

As the U.S. political establishment confronts its own self-made fiscal cliff, it should view what is transpiring in Greece as an ill omen and not a situation to gloat over. It is only because of the sovereign debt crisis ravaging Europe’s economies that has enabled a reality whereby the U.S. government can borrow more than a trillion dollars a year, accounting for about thirty percent of all federal government expenditures, at record low interest rates. This situation cannot endure indefinitely. If American politicians fail to craft a sensible, sustainable, long-term fiscal consolidation, America will end up in the economic wasteland that is contemporary Greece. As we can all currently observe, such a draconian reality would present the U.S. with the choice of either  crippling austerity measures imposed by the nation’s creditors, or some form of debt default ( including the option that the Federal Reserve engineers massive inflation).

Greece is not only suffering appalling economic devastation. It is also presenting to the world a modern-day national Cassandra, with a prophetic warning that is especially relevant for American policymakers.

 

 

                 

 

 

 

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

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President Barack Obama Wins Reelection; Now Comes The Fiscal Cliff

November 9th, 2012 Comments off

 

The results of America’s 2012 presidential election were barely finalized when the political establishment immediately shifted gears, now focusing on what is being referred to as the nation’s “fiscal cliff.” This dire term involves a convergence of two hour glasses running out of sand. One is expiration of the so-called “Bush tax cuts,” the radical reduction in upper income taxation during the Bush presidency that transformed America’s fiscal balance sheet from questionable surplus (only surplus with fuzzy accounting on future Medicare and Social Security obligations). The other is the automatic cutbacks in federal spending that take effect without a negotiated bipartisan deficit reduction agreement

Washington’s massive structural mega-deficits are unsustainable. However, a radical, unplanned reduction done like cold turkey will crash the economy, resulting in a revenue shortfall  for the government, and the retention of a massive deficit.

How will the politicians in Washington DC behave? Like adults? Possibly, because of market terror at the alterative. However, with the Republican Party very bitter towards President Obama for having the audacity to defeat his GOP challenger, don’t be too hopeful that the GOP will put aside its political agenda for the national interest.

                 

 

 

 

WALL STREET KILLS--A CHILLING NOVEL ABOUT WALL STREET GREED GONE MAD

 To view the official trailer YouTube video for “Wall Street Kills,” click image below:

In a world dominated by high finance, how far would Wall Street go in search of profits? In Sheldon Filger’s terrifying novel about money, sex and murder, Wall Street has no limits. “Wall Street Kills” is the ultimate thriller about greed gone mad. Read “Wall Street Kills” and blow your mind.

 

photo