And there will be even fewer jobs when cap and trade kicks in. Why would anyone want to expand in this country and pay all the cap fees when they can go to China or India and not pay any. If you thought jobs were being exported before wait till that kicks in. Where are we going to get all the electricity to recharge all our electric cars? Wind and solar cannot handle the load.
The gov won't have any problem paying the debt. The Fed can always just print what ever money it needs. That's what it's doing now. The problem is that printing lots of money leads to lots of inflation which means the Fed has to raise interest rates or there will be even more inflation. The other two solutions are to borrow money (from China, EU or whom ever) or to cut spending. Cutting spending is out. Congress and the Pres are incapable is reducing spending. In fact, they (especially Democrats) use crisis as an excuse to spend even more. Bush spent plenty with a good economy and the Dems just point to that as an excuse and are going to make Bush's spending look like child's play. Only, we don't have a growing economy to increase tax revenues now and won't under Obama. So, we can borrow more but who is going to have the ability to finance our debt? China is about done and re-floating our existing debt is going to get harder. That leaves, PRINT MORE MONEY. A dollar collapse and hyper-inflation will be inevitable. People who have saved money, retired, live on fixed incomes are all screwed in this environment. Those who have hard assets may do OK depending upon the assets. Maintaining purchasing power will be the goal. Those who owe money (mostly the lower middle class) will be saved. As money devalues, debts can be repaid with cheaper dollars. A fourth alternative is to send the U.S. and possibly the world economies into the tank for a long time. That will keep inflation down, it will allow government to spend, spend, spend. And it will make the masses dependent upon the government for food and shelter. This seems to be the most likely outcome. However, it is a recipe to much more government control and possibly an Orwellian state. Take your pick. Every outcome is bad given our current path.
2 words JOB GROWTH, without job growth the economy is not going to turn around anytime soon, aside from that I can tell you right now that job growth in this economy is many years away. REASON BEING IS VERY SIMPLE..... Anyone saying that we will return back to 4-5% unemployment rates is lying straight to your face. There is about 0% of this happening anytime over the next decade, the jobs created just over the past 20 years were based on an economy that was fueled by cheap and easy credit, cheap credit that fueled the dot com and real estate boom creating millions of new jobs as the economy expanded in its own fantasy like world. Businesses were able to expand and borrow with a simple signature. Homeowners were able to borrow from the 3000SQ Piggy bank and buy just about anything they wanted helping the economy. The world of easy credit is done with, jobs that were created during these booming times may never come back. Creating jobs in this environment is going to be nearly impossible, don't believe the hype about job creation, jobs will never be as plentiful as they once were.
agree Borrowing and printing our way out of this is not going to work, anyone who actually believes inflation is not going to be a problem better think twice, inflation is going to run rampant over the next decade.
All this talk about inflation is a bunch of horsesh*t. I simply don't get where people are coming up with this. money supply is expanding, but all that cash is being hoarded by banks. They are in no position to lend to anyone for years to come. Think Japan. Think hoarding by zombie banks. Think credit, price, and wage destruction as capital flows continue to dwindle. Then you get the broad picture. D-E-F-L-A-T-I-O-N. rt
We're not going to have deflation. The Fed will start or takeover its own commercial bank and start inundating the economy with dollars at an interest rate equal to the discount window. Everyone will be able to borrow against anything: car loans, mortgages, personal loans, and business loans. It won't matter. Everyone will have unlimited borrowing potential via the discount window. The Fed has made it clear the deflation is not an option and the have unlimited resources to ensure that's the case.
We are IN deflation. If they had the means to do what you say, the process of deflation would not have already started. Government commercial bank? What newspaper are you reading? There is nothing the government, Fed, or anyone can do about this. We are in the death grip of a massive debt collapse that simply cannot be evaded by haphazard use of monetary or fiscal policy. rt
You're right that prices are currently deflating but next FOMC meeting and deflation is going to get the shit knocked out of it. If I'm wrong, bump this post and I will apologize (unless I've been banned for my anti-Michigan rhetoric).