Tag: Boomergeddon
-
Quote of the Day: Jim DeMint
From a viewpoint written by Sen. Jim DeMint, R-SC, and published by the Republican Joint Economic Committee: “Just as Greece enjoyed years of low interest rate loans to finance their debt due to the backing of the Euro’s good name, the United States is today enjoying a time of artificially low interest rates as a…
-
Austerity, Recession and Staving off Boomergeddon
A year and a half ago, I went out on a limb and predicted that the budget austerity plan implemented by the newly elected Conservative Party in the United Kingdom would pay off. While chopping down the size of the budget deficit would act as a Keynesian-style depressant on the economy, I hoped that re-establishing…
-
Boomergeddon Watch: Social Security
by James A. Bacon File this under the “Long, Slow Demise of America’s Democratic Welfare State”… The Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees have published their 2012 annual report on the financial condition of Social Security and Medicare, and the news just keeps getting worse. The combination of a slowing economy and a payroll…
-
Collapse of the Blue State Governance Model: New York Update
Yeah, Virginia legislators do a lot of stupid stuff, I can’t deny that. Without question, the commonwealth’s governance model is critically flawed. But, to tweak Winston Churchill’s immortal words about democracy, Virginia’s government is the worst in the world — except most of the others. The situation is worse in New York — a lot…
-
Government Benefits in a Post-Boomergeddon World
How bad will it hurt when Boomergeddon hits and the federal government goes into default/hyperinflation mode? One way to measure the economic impact is dependence upon federal government transfer payments. The New York Times has tallied up expenditures on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans payments, unemployment insurance and income support, and plotted them as a percentage…
-
Do Panic!!
Some readers may have taken note of Standard & Poor’s Friday downgrade of the long-term debt ratings of France, Italy and Spain as well as assorted minor European countries such as Austria, Cyprus, Malta, Slovenia and the Slovak Republic. To some, that development may seem distant and irrelevant to Virginia as legislators struggle to assemble…
-
A Rare Instance of Sanity on the Rachel Maddow Show
by James A. Bacon Last night, for the first time in my life, I managed to watch the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC without my blood pressure shooting through the roof. Even more amazing, I maintained my cool while Maddow interviewed Rep. Barney Frank, D-Massachusetts, the bilious co-author, among other dubious accomplishments, of the Fannie…
-
Still Honoring TJ’s Tradition of Indebtedness
James A. Bacon It’s basic economics: Consumer spending drives the American economy, accounting for 70% of GDP. One reason the United States economy is in the doldrums is that consumers can no longer sustain the borrowing binge that propelled the economy during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. In “Boomergeddon” I predicted that the savings rate…
-
If You’ve Lost David Brooks, You’ve Lost America
When keepers of the conventional wisdom and guardian of the status quo like David Brooks say the United States is becoming another Greece, you can pretty well assume that we’re becoming another Greece. The political divide between Ds and Rs is so wide that the New York Times columnist can’t see how the $1 trillion-a-year…
-
Italy’s Fiscal Event Horizon — and Ours
by James A. Bacon To understand America’s fiscal future, it is instructive to look at Italy. The land of la dolce vita has the 8th largest economy in the world and, by some measures, the 8th highest standard of living. The country also has one of the largest government debt loads in comparison to the…
-
More Crazy Boomergeddon Talk
James A. Bacon Imagine this scenario: Investors in U.S. Treasuries are so nervous about the country’s credit worthiness that they pile into notes with short-term maturities. Thirty percent of the national debt rolls over each year. To cover its routine borrowing, equal to 10% of the economy, and to keep the debt treadmill rolling, the…
-
Women and Children First!
by James A. Bacon Boomergeddon is running right on schedule. The Congressional Budget Office released a report earlier this month disclosing that the federal budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2011, which closed September 31, was $1.3 trillion — equal to 8.6% of GDP. Two years into the economy recovery, the United States still racked up…
-
The Updated Boomergeddon Timetable
by James A. Bacon So, Standard and Poor’s has downgraded the credit rating of the United States from AAA to AA+. There’s no immediate cause for alarm. AA+ is still a high, investment-grade rating and the interest rate differential between the two is miniscule. Interest rates will not go shooting up because of this. The…