Washington has pumped over $6 trillion into the economy to tackle the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus. The US has long been largely immune to the inflationary impacts of excessive quantitative easing and large debt due to the dollar’s status as the world reserve currency. Now, some observers fear that that may soon change.
Larry Summers, the former World Bank chief economist, Clinton-era treasury secretary, and Obama-era director of the National Economic Council, has made some dire predictions for the US economy’s future, describing the current macroeconomic policy as the “least responsible” he’s seen since the early 1980s and suggesting the US may be headed for a “stagflationary” crisis.
“I think this is the least responsible macroeconomic policies we’ve had in the last 40 years. I think fundamentally it’s driven by intransigence on the Democratic left, and intransigence and completely unreasonable behaviour in the whole of the Republican Party that’s driven us to the kind of political deals that we’re seeing,” the economist added.
“I think there’s a one third chance that we won’t see inflation, but that the reason we won’t see it is that the Fed hits the brakes hard, markets get very unstable, the economy skids downwards close to recession,” the economist added, referring to a scenario in which the Federal Reserve dramatically raises interest rates.
Summers also believes that there’s only about a one in three shot that the Fed and Treasury get the desired-after results of rapid growth from its policies, with the growth smoothing out inflation and unemployment. “But there are more risks in this moment that macroeconomic policy itself will cause grave consequences than I can remember. There have been terribly serious moments in the past, but then macroeconomic policy was trying to stabilise things. Now there’s the real risk that macroeconomic policy will be very much destabilising,” he warned.
In this image from Senate TV, Vice President Kamala Harris sits in the chair on the Senate floor to cast the tie-breaking vote, her first, Friday, Feb. 5, 2021 at the Capitol in Washington. The Senate early Friday approved a budget resolution that paves the way for fast-track passage of President Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief plan without support from Republicans.
Stimulus Straw That Broke the Camel’s Back?
Congress recently passed $1.9 trillion in additional stimulus to try to stop the economic bleeding caused by the 2020 coronavirus crisis, with the package including one-time $1,400 relief checks, additional monies for state and local governments, unemployment benefits and other measures, including billions for vaccines and testing, subsidies to businesses, tax breaks, etc.
The United States has now pumped over $6 trillion into Covid relief, piling on to America’s gargantuan $28 trillion debt. Federal debt passed the 100 percent of GDP mark in the spring of 2020. Fitch Ratings expects federal debt to reach over 109 percent of GDP by the end of 2021, with general government debt expected to reach 127 percent of GDP during the same period, and surpass 130 percent by 2023. Combined government, business and household debt surpassed over 250 percent of GDP last year, before the impact of the coronavirus crisis was fully felt.
Unlike most countries, which suffer substantial inflationary penalties and currency collapse if they pursue excessive money printing or accumulate too much debt (the Soviet economy collapsed as debt hit $110 billion, for example), the United States has long enjoyed a unique position in the world, with the dollar’s status as the de facto world currency enabling Washington to rack up debts and engage in quantitative easing for decades without fears out-of-control inflation, or concerns that investors could some day conclude that the state can’t pay its debts and stop buying treasuries. In recent years, however, a growing number of economists, banks and policymakers have expressed concerns that the current state of affairs can’t last forever, and that sooner or later, both the dollar and the economy in general will be made to reap the consequences of Washington’s decades-long ‘free ride.’
Sourse: sputniknews.com
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