May 29, 2018

Video: The Next Financial Crisis

The National Debt Disaster

The 21 trillion dollar national debt which of course is now closer to 21.2 trillion and rising rapidly -  the problem there is not just the enormity of the debt but the cost of financing it. 

One of the things that candidate Trump promised was to take advantage of these ultra-low long-term interest rates by locking them in and moving the debt more towards long-term rates. Well, he actually did the opposite as President. He's actually shortened the maturity even shorter. We're relying even more heavily now on short-term financing than ever before. 

But as interest rates are rising the cost of servicing this debt is exploding and that is one of the principal drivers of the deficits now being over a trillion dollars a year is the extra cost of paying the interest on the money that we've already borrowed. Not the money we're borrowing now to fund the current deficit but the money we have to constantly borrow to fund the 21 trillion of debt that we already have. 

So this is not a disaster for the future this is a disaster that we're gonna be dealing with in the here and now.

May 25, 2018

The Highest The Fed Gets Is About 2.50%

If you look at what the Federal Reserve is saying, they're also talking about the fact that we're a lot closer to a neutral rate of interest than they might have felt in the past and that there's really not that many rate hikes left.

I mean maybe the markets are looking for two or three interest rate hikes this year but I think what people are now starting to think is that that may be it. I mean after this year the Federal Reserve is done hiking and so maybe the highest the Federal Reserve gets is about two and a half percent and then they're done hiking.

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