Sims said:
FWTXAg said:
Put out whatever numbers you want to keep the game of musical chairs going just a little longer, normal every day Americans are relying on it.
I think the unwind of the shell game that's been played for years will be painful to people in a way they don't even realize. The correction would be the right thing for long term stability. Lots of comfort and financial mobility is built on something many don't want to admit benefits them directly.
Asset price inflation has been very good to homeowners and 401(k) holders. Sustained deficit spending shows up as someone's income. Low rates rescued a lot of corporate balance sheets from implosion and subsequent bankruptcy/layoffs. Plenty of people who'd describe themselves as fiscally conservative have net worths that depend on the very dynamics they critique. The tension is real.
K-shaped economy. ZIRP made asset holders richer than we could ever have imagined, and now we're staring right in the face at negative growth and long-term higher inflation. Social Security will become insolvent within 10 years, and interest on the debt is the third-largest item in the federal budget (after SS and Medicare/Medicaid).
Soon there will be fewer Americans under 17 than older than 65. There is may be no replacing the labor needed to afford the social programs voted on decades ago. Maybe productivity increases can be found. A declining labor participation rate, along with an aging population, is bad news.